by Susan Lewis
Patty’s head went down. Her conscience was already beyond guilty, and this was making it so much worse. ‘I’ve told you before …’
‘I know what you told me, that you fought it and fought it, but you couldn’t give him up. The trouble is, Mum, he wasn’t yours to give up. He was hers and now she’s ended up losing both of you. Why are you shaking your head? You know she has …’
‘No, she hasn’t,’ Patty came in quietly. ‘Don’s going to stay with her. He’s not coming back here.’
Livvy became very still. ‘You mean, not tonight?’
‘Not at all,’ Patty replied, and turning away she willed herself not to break down. It wasn’t only Don, though God knew in the days to come that would be the worst of it, it was all the talk of her mother, the reliving of the past, that was making everything so difficult now.
‘Are you crying?’ Livvy said worriedly.
‘No,’ Patty sniffed, shaking her head.
‘Yes you are. Oh Mum, I wish I knew what to do …’ Livvy put her arms round her.
‘It’s OK, I’m fine,’ Patty insisted, hugging her back. ‘It’s just been an emotional day, and … You’re right, he was never mine anyway, and now I’ve ruined everything …’
‘You don’t know that for sure, and anyway, like we’ve said before, you don’t get to choose who you fall in love with. It was just mean of fate, or whatever, to have made you fall for him. So I guess it’s not your fault really.’
Patty couldn’t help but smile. ‘You’ve always been a sucker for tears,’ she teased softly.
Livvy rolled her eyes. ‘I suppose that makes me a bit like you then.’
‘I suppose it does,’ Patty responded, folding her in her arms again. It felt so good to be close to Livvy like this, so right and vital, the way it used to feel when her mother held her. It had been so long since she’d allowed herself to think of that. ‘What time are we expecting Jake?’ she finally managed to ask.
‘His train gets in at half four. I said I’d pick him up from the station. Actually, I probably ought to go in a minute. Will you be all right?’
‘I’ll be fine. Shall we eat at home tonight? Will Dave join us?’
‘I guess yes to both. What are you going to do till I come back?’
‘I might go and lie down for an hour. I’ve got a bit of a headache and I didn’t sleep too well last night.’
Gazing deeply into her eyes, Livvy said, ‘You’re doing the right thing letting him go back to Eva, you know.’
Forcing the words from the tightness in her heart, Patty said, ‘Yes, of course.’
‘I know you won’t want to hear this now,’ Livvy went on, ‘but you will get over him.’
Unable to say any more, Patty brushed a hand over Livvy’s cheek, and after watching her go out to her car she turned away from the door, so racked with grief that there was simply no way she could hold it in now. How, after so many years, could her mother’s suicide still devastate her this much? No one, not even Elaine, had any idea how difficult she found it to talk about that time. Whenever she did it brought everything back in a way that she simply couldn’t endure. There were times when she even hated her mother for what she’d done. It had been selfish and cruel to a point that could never be forgiven. She should have thought about all the hurt she was going to cause, how she would destroy their lives and how much she, Patty would miss her. But she hadn’t. The only one she’d thought about, or even seemed to care about at the end, was Eva. It was there in the note she’d left, the note that was even now in Patty’s bedside drawer. Yes, she’d lied to Eva, and she was already regretting it, but it was a part of their mother that was hers, that she’d never wanted to share with anyone. Only she and her father – and the police – had ever read it, so only they knew that Eva had mattered to their mother more than she had.
How could that be true? What kind of a mother had favourites?
What kind of a mother committed suicide?
No real mother would ever abandon her children.
Her eyes closed as she was suddenly swamped by the memory of a nurse walking away with a baby. She could hear the squeal of her shoes on the polished floor, see the gentle sway of her hips. Her breath caught harshly on a sob. Eva had abandoned her son as cruelly as their mother had abandoned them, and she, Patty, had done nothing to stop it. She’d simply sat there, watching, listening and saying nothing as Eva rejected her own child. How could she have done nothing to save her nephew? The fact that she’d just been diagnosed with cancer, and had no way of knowing how well, or not, she would respond to her treatment, was surely reason enough. No one had ever condemned her, not even Eva. They’d all understood that she’d been so scared at the time, traumatised even, by her own news and by what had happened to her sister that she really hadn’t had a choice. She’d had to put her own children first, and Eva, in case Livvy and Jake ended up needing their aunt to be their mother.
It had seemed to make sense then, and in a way it still did now, but she could no longer deny that she could have – should have – taken Eva’s son into her home. And the terrible, unforgivable truth of why she hadn’t was something she still, even now, couldn’t bring herself to face.
‘Eva, you’re not listening.’
Eva was standing at the window, watching the changing colours and shapes of a stormy sunset shadowing and lighting the bay. ‘I think it’s you who’s not listening,’ she told him calmly. ‘I’ve just said I’d rather be left on my own.’
Dashing a hand through his hair, Don forced himself not to sigh. ‘I’m not talking about staying with you until you feel more able …’
‘I know what you’re saying,’ she interrupted, ‘and I don’t need your pity.’
‘It’s not pity …’
She turned to face him. ‘You’ve made it clear that you want to be with Patty, so go. I’m sure she’ll be waiting.’
He didn’t move, only looked at her.
‘Didn’t you hear what I said?’
‘Patty isn’t expecting me. She knows I’m staying here.’
‘Then I’m sure she’ll be relieved when she finds out that you’re not.’
As she turned back to the window, seeming so remote that she could have been at the other side of the horizon, he could only watch her helplessly. ‘Eva, I’m worried about you,’ he said. ‘After what …’
‘You’re afraid I’m going to follow in my mother’s footsteps, is that it?’ she cut in bluntly. ‘If it is, then you don’t need to be.’
Having had his fear voiced and denied was, he found, reassuring. Nevertheless, he said, ‘You shouldn’t be here on your own.’
Her eyebrows went up. ‘You were happy to leave me alone before,’ she reminded him.
‘There was nothing about it that made me happy.’
‘Surely there must have been. You were going to be with Patty, remember? There wouldn’t have been much point to that if she didn’t make you happy.’
Shifting uncomfortably, he said, ‘You know what I’m saying, and …’
‘Anyway, Livvy’ll be here soon. She texted earlier to say Jake’s coming too, so you see, I won’t be on my own. And Jasmine’s arriving early tomorrow, she said.’
‘Livvy’s with her mother now. Patty thought she should know that you and I are getting back together.’
At that, Eva’s eyes flashed with anger, but though she looked as if she might say something, in the end she merely turned to stare out to sea again. ‘Go to Patty,’ she told him coldly. ‘I don’t want you here.’
Not sure what to do, he gazed down at Elvis and Rosie as though they might be able to tell him. Eva’s mobile rang, and picking it up she checked who it was and clicked on.
‘Livvy, hi. Is Jake here yet?’
‘I’m just on my way to get him,’ Livvy answered. ‘Mum told me about Don and that you’re … you’re back together?’
‘No, Don and I aren’t back together. In fact, he’s just about to leave.’
Livvy
sounded despairing as she said, ‘I really don’t get what’s going on here.’
‘I’m sorry …’
‘Are you all right? Mum told me about Granny and everything …’
‘I’m OK. A bit shocked, obviously, but I guess that’s only to be expected.’
‘So did you pass out at Elaine’s? Mum thought you did.’
‘No, I tripped, but no one would believe me, which is how come Don is here and my car is still at the retreat. I’ll have to go back tomorrow to pick it up.’
‘I can take you,’ Don put in.
‘You won’t be here,’ she reminded him.
‘What do you want me to do?’ Livvy asked. ‘Shall I come there with Jake, or go back to Mum’s? Actually, if Don’s going to be with Mum I guess I should come to you.’
‘As you like. Will Jake be staying too?’
‘I expect so, if it’s all right.’
‘Of course it is. I’ll see you when you get here.’
After ringing off Eva went through to the laundry room to collect some clean towels. When she returned to find Don still standing where she’d left him, looking confounded and lost, she felt herself falter for a moment. ‘I’m going to get a room ready for Jake now,’ she told him. ‘Perhaps you wouldn’t mind feeding Rosie and Elvis before you leave.’
‘Eva, this isn’t …’
‘I don’t want to argue any more,’ she interrupted. ‘Our marriage is over, we both know that, and frankly, having you in the house is making it a lot harder to deal with. So please be gone by the time I come back down again.’
It was almost eight o’clock by now, and after watching her niece and nephew wolf down a giant bowl of spaghetti carbonara Eva was still sitting with them, drinking wine and managing to laugh at Jake’s stories of Sicily. She kept thinking of how proud her mother would have been of them, and wondering how often Patty had thought the same. She was filled with admiration for the way Jake could make her and Livvy feel as though they were a part of his adventure with his vivid and often outrageous descriptions, particularly of what he and the others had got up to while there. It was reminding her of how high she used to get on visiting new places and meeting other models, stylists, photographers, advertising clients. The parties they used to have. The wild and reckless adventures with not a single care in the world. She’d never been to Sicily, or Cartagena, where Jake was apparently heading next, but there was no rule to say she had to visit everywhere before she died. Besides, she belonged here now, in Dorset, and though she had no idea yet of how she was going to bear it with neither her sister nor Don as a part of her life, she’d already made up her mind that she wasn’t going to run away from the home she’d created and loved.
‘Shall I open another bottle?’ Livvy suggested, emptying the first one into Jake’s glass.
‘Definitely,’ Jake cried. Then, remembering his manners, ‘I mean, as long as it’s OK.’
Smiling, Eva got up to go to the cooler. ‘What’s mine’s yours,’ she told him. ‘Mum and I always used to say that to each other. I think she’s taken it a bit far with Don though, don’t you?’
The joke misfired, but the moment passed as she handed a bottle to Jake to open and sat down again. Having them here was wonderfully soothing, she was finding, and distracting in a way that didn’t take her so far away from the heartache that it hit her like a blow when she came back again. She thought of Don down at the barn with Patty and felt herself folding inside, but then she quickly switched her thoughts to her mother and provided she didn’t think of the final hours, she found herself feeling the calmness she’d experienced for those few precious minutes earlier. It had disappeared as soon as she’d walked into Elaine’s kitchen and seen Don, leaving her shaken and almost panicky, which was why she’d missed a step on leaving. But it had come back later, like a lifeline, and she was holding on to it as if it were part of her.
‘Would you like to talk about what’s happened today?’ Livvy said gently. ‘I mean, we don’t have to if you don’t want to, I just don’t want you to think that you’ve got to keep it all bottled up …’
‘I’m fine, honestly,’ Eva assured her, ‘but it’s sweet of you to ask.’ Her eyes started to twinkle. ‘I’m enjoying listening to this reprobate,’ she said, ruffling Jake’s hair. ‘Tell us more about Bobbie. Did she stay in Sicily for the whole time you were there?’
Finishing up the slice of cheese he’d just helped himself to, Jake said, ‘Actually, she flew back a few days ago, and to be honest it all went a bit flat for a while, because she’s so out there, isn’t she? It’s like we didn’t really know what to do with ourselves, because she was the focus of everything.’
‘She was always like that,’ Eva told him. ‘People just gravitate to her.’
‘And she is so hilarious with Manuela. They could give Elvis and Rosie a run for their money, those two. Talk about an odd couple.’
‘They’re pretty legendary,’ Eva agreed.
‘I’d love to see her again,’ Livvy sighed. ‘It seems ages since she was last here.’
‘We’ll have to invite her,’ Eva decided. ‘She’s always so busy that we’ll probably have to book months in advance, but I’ll give her a call. Is she going to Cartagena with you?’ she asked Jake.
He shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so. The last time I saw her, which was yesterday when she only took me … Wait for this … To the Ivy for lunch. Oh my God, that reminds me, a friend of hers came over to our table to say hello, and asked me to say hi when I saw you.’
Not surprised, since she’d known a lot of Bobbie’s friends way back when, Eva was intrigued as she said, ‘Who was it?’
Jake was looking apologetic to show he’d already forgotten the name.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Eva told him. ‘Just as long as you were having a good time.’
‘Oh, no, that’s right,’ he exclaimed, suddenly remembering. ‘He’s called Nick … Nick … something-or-other.’
Feeling a strangeness inside that was more unsettling than pleasant, Eva said, ‘Nick Jensen?’
‘That’s him!’ Jake cried, with a clap of his hands. ‘Jensen. That’s his name.’
Careful not to let her feelings show, Eva smiled and lifted her glass. There was no need for Livvy and Jake to know anything about Nick Jensen, who he was, how he fitted into her life, or how furious she was that he’d dare to send a message through her nephew. In fact, how dared he even admit that he knew her? After the way he’d shut her, and their son, out of his life sixteen years ago he had no right to behave as though she might actually be pleased to hear from him, any more than he had a right to protest to a newspaper on her behalf. What had happened between them was in the past, over, done with, and as far as she was concerned that was exactly how it would stay.
Chapter Fourteen
It was hard to believe that over six weeks had passed since the day Eva had learned the truth about her mother – the very same day that she’d told Don to go. She’d never imagined herself doing that, and still felt surprised, even regretful about it, but knowing she could never trust – or respect – him again, she’d felt she’d had little choice.
If only love and hope could be so easily banished.
Time often felt somehow surreal now, much like her existence, making what she’d managed to achieve in these bizarrely short, yet eternal, weeks seem almost incredible. She knew that Don and Patty had been expecting her to fall apart, and God knew how often, in her private moments, she had, but somehow she was managing to keep going. Exactly where her inner strength was coming from was difficult to say, and there were definitely times when it deserted her completely. However, after reaching the bottom, when it simply wasn’t possible to get any lower, she’d find herself calling on those few precious minutes at Elaine’s when she’d felt close to her mother. It was as though, she sometimes thought, her mother was willing her not to take the same way out that she had. Suicide wasn’t an answer; it wouldn’t give her the release or the end to
her pain she was seeking.
Though it worried Eva very much to think that her mother’s soul, even now, might be in torment somewhere, Elaine could never be convinced.
‘It’s in your mind,’ she’d tell her, ‘everything is, which gives you the power to change it.’
Eva was sure that it was spending so much time with Elaine over these past weeks that had enabled her slowly, but steadily, to come to terms with the way her mother had died, and to find the strength to start turning her life around. Though, in spite of everything, it might be breaking her heart to be estranged from her sister, she kept telling herself that one day it would stop hurting as much, and eventually at some point in the future they would become used to no longer being a part of one another’s lives. As devastating as the thought was, she’d come to understand – and was sure Patty had too – that this was the price of betrayal, and no one, not even the innocent, escaped how bitter and unforgiving it could be.
Lately, especially over these last few days, she’d even started to see some light. In fact, where she was now, today, and what she was doing, was proof in itself of how far she’d come in such a short space of time.
‘This is so cool, isn’t it?’ Livvy whispered excitedly. ‘I never imagined it would be anything like this.’
Loving how thrilled Livvy was, especially as she was making this happen mainly for her, Eva said, ‘We have our wonderful Bobbie to thank for it.’
‘And you,’ Livvy reminded her loyally. ‘I mean, you’re the one who decided to pull out all the big guns. If you hadn’t, no one would be here.’
‘Well, a few would,’ Eva responded wryly, ‘but it’s true, this is a very different fashion show to the one we sent out invitations for.’
Which was why they’d had to relocate from the Summer Lodge at Evershot to a much larger, but equally luxurious venue near Bournemouth, where there was a ballroom big enough to provide seating for two hundred guests with a division down the middle to accommodate a ten-metre catwalk. There was also a spacious adjacent room where the three models Bobbie had sent could make their quick changes – and most importantly of all, at least as far as some were concerned, a free bar was linking the event room to the reception. This was where Eva and Livvy were now, greeting their guests as they flowed in, gorgeously and even outlandishly clad in everything from Jackson to Conran to Christian Dior. The hotel staff were handing out glasses of champagne, while the photographer that Eva’s new PR agent had hired for the day jostled with his colleagues from various glossies and tabloids to capture the most saleable shots of the event.
