by Susan Lewis
She nodded, and might have reminded him that he knew the house because he’d found it with her, some seventeen years ago, but somehow it didn’t seem appropriate. So she simply poured the wine while he finally took off his coat and hung it over the back of a chair.
‘Shall we take our drinks through?’ she suggested.
Standing back for her to lead the way, he followed her into the sumptuous sitting room with its curved leather sofas, original oriental artworks and a plush silk carpet that had cost, according to Carrie-Anne, almost as much as the apartment.
‘Your friend always did have style,’ he commented drily, as he waited for Eva to sit down before deciding where to sit himself.
Choosing one of the sofas and waving him towards the other so he was close, but not too close, she told him, ‘She’s only recently redone it. Apparently it has a ten-page spread in Interiors next month.’
Nodding to show he was impressed, he raised his glass and said, ‘Here’s to seeing you again.’
She smiled and wondered why she’d been so nervous when, if she’d stopped to think, she’d have remembered that he’d always had a gift for putting people at their ease. And the years, apparently, had done nothing to change that. ‘And to you,’ she responded. ‘It’s a Gavi, by the way. I hope you like it.’
‘One of my favourites,’ he assured her, and after taking a sip he raised his eyebrows to indicate approval.
‘So you live in Battersea and Hampshire,’ she said, settling in more comfortably, ‘but I don’t know what you’re doing these days. Am I allowed to ask?’
‘Sure you are. I have part ownership of a production company that specialises mainly in corporate training videos, but we make the odd pop video too, usually low-budget, and we’ve had a few documentary series broadcast on the non-terrestrial networks. It’s pretty hectic, or it was until the recession hit. We haven’t particularly noticed the downturn yet, because we’re still editing one series and shooting another, but once they’re complete we don’t have a whole lot of things rushing our way. So, it’s down to yours truly to pull something out of the bag before next spring.’
‘That’s your role, getting the commissions?’ she asked, trying to stop wondering what sort of partner he was referring to, while still struggling to grasp the reality of them sitting here in this room together. It felt so bizarre, almost surreal. This man who was virtually a stranger, had once meant everything to her, and though he no longer did, on some level she was neither ashamed nor surprised that he had.
‘Primarily,’ he replied, ‘but I act as exec producer once the projects are under way. My partner is more hands-on with it all, going on shoots, sitting in editing rooms, organising crews, that sort of thing. I tend to travel more, mainly in search of co-finance. And your shop is doing fantastically well, I hear?’
Almost laughing at the way he’d managed to turn the subject so effortlessly and swiftly to her, her expression was wry as she said, ‘How typical of Bobbie to overstate it, but it’s true things do seem to be on the up.’
‘I saw the papers after your recent show. It’s quite a unique idea you’ve got going there, pooling local talent to offer something exclusive at an affordable price. I can see why they’re so interested.’
Taking a sip of her wine, she regarded him carefully as she said, ‘Speaking of papers, I’ve been informed by a very reliable source that it was you who wrote to Saturday Siesta about their feature on me.’
Though his eyes sparked with humour, he looked curious as he replied, ‘I never told Bobbie, so I’m intrigued to know how you found out.’
Giving it some thought, and realising it wasn’t a route she wanted to go down yet, she playfully repeated his words as she said, ‘It’s a long story, but I’m sure we’ll get round to it. So what made you do it?’
He seemed incredulous. ‘I was incensed, of course. Or I was once I found out they’d gone ahead without consulting you. Considering everything you’d been through, and how rarely you’ve ventured into the public eye since, any jackass should have been able to work out why you wouldn’t want to be featured. With the amount of nutters there are around, those responsible for that article were causing you an untenable amount of stress at best, and at worst they were putting you at risk. So I told them what I thought and threatened legal action if they didn’t at least send you an apology.’
Eva’s eyes were dancing. ‘Did you mean it about the legal action?’ she asked.
‘Yes!’ Then with a sheepish twinkle, ‘I don’t know if I had a case, but it sounded good and from what Bobbie tells me it got a result.’
‘It did,’ she confirmed, amused and touched by how concerned he’d obviously been. ‘So what else are you doing these days when you’re not exec producing or being Mr Angry with the papers?’
He tilted his head to one side. ‘I guess that about sums it up,’ he decided. ‘All work and little time for play.’
She wondered how long they were going to continue hedging around the subject of his wife – or, more importantly, their son and the reason she’d given him up for adoption. Considering what a terrible, dark time that had been, and how light-hearted they were managing to be with one another now, she’d have preferred not to go there at all. But then he was saying, ‘There’s something I have to tell you, something I should have told you the night we broke up, or at least when you rang from the hospital to find out why I hadn’t been to see you.’
As his eyes went down she felt her heartbeat starting to slow.
‘It seems crazy now that we didn’t want anyone to know,’ he continued, staring into his glass, ‘but perspective always seems different with hindsight. When you’re in the heat of it all, feeling terrified out of your mind, not knowing which way to turn …’ His eyes came to hers as he said, ‘The reason I broke up with you, the reason everything happened the way it did after that, was because Maddy, my daughter, had just been diagnosed with acute meningitis. It sent us into a total panic. We thought we were going to lose her, and we nearly did. I was beside myself. I hardly knew what I was doing from one minute to the next. I wanted to come to you, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave her side – and I knew what it would do to my wife if she found out I’d been. She was going through so much already. She didn’t need to be dealing with that too. So I stayed with her, alternating shifts through endless days and nights, willing Maddy to stay with us, not to let go.’
Appalled that she hadn’t known any of this, though accepting it had happened during a time when she was barely conscious, Eva whispered, ‘And did she? Stay with you?’
He nodded, and even now, all these years later, he seemed to experience the same rush of relief. ‘In the end, yes, she did, but it was a hell of a long haul and for weeks, months, we had to live with the fear that even if she did survive her brain would be damaged beyond repair.’
Aware of what a difference this might have made to her, if she’d known, Eva said, ‘Why on earth didn’t you tell anyone?’
‘I guess we thought, in that bizarre way you do when you’re in the thick of it, that if it got out it would make it real, or worse … I don’t know. All kinds of crazy things go through your head at a time like that. And Sally – my wife – didn’t want the press getting hold of it and tying it in some way to what was happening to you, or camping out at the hospital like ghouls waiting to find out who was going to die first, Nick Jensen’s girlfriend or his daughter.’
‘I didn’t …’ Eva cleared her throat, ‘realise that she knew about me.’
He shook his head. ‘Nor did I till then, but it turned out she’d known practically the whole time we were seeing one another. She told me after – we were in Italy by then – that she’d lived in constant dread of the day I came home to tell her I was leaving. It never occurred to her, she said, to dread something happening to Maddy.’
Thinking of Elaine’s warning about how much time people spent worrying about things that never happened, Eva said, ‘I take it Maddy’s all right now?�
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Looking relieved all over again, he said, ‘She’s fine, thank you. A typical twenty-year-old if ever there was one, and with no memory whatsoever of what happened to her when she was four.’
Eva smiled. ‘That’s good. Is she still at home with you, or has some far-flung university claimed her?’
‘Actually, she’s reading English and French at UCL, and because it’s cheaper to live with Dad, that’s where she is. I tell her it’s why I have to get out at weekends, to escape her terrible music and dreadful friends, and the answer I usually get is something along the lines of “Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can’t live without me and you know it, so let’s stop pretending.”’
Finding herself laughing, Eva asked, ‘So how long have you been back from Italy? Quite a while, by the sound of it.’
‘It’ll be eight – no nine – years in February. I don’t know if it was a mistake to go in the first place, or not. I guess it worked out for Sally – she was the one who wanted to start afresh after Maddy was given the all clear, and I suppose I went along with it because I knew if I didn’t she’d go anyway and take Maddy with her. So we sold the house, ploughed the proceeds into a run-down farmhouse just outside Forte dei Marmi, on the Tuscan coast, and not much more than eighteen months later she had the restaurant-cum-pensione she’d always dreamed of.’
‘And what about you? Did you give up photography altogether?’
‘More or less. We got so busy with the business and then Matilda, our youngest, was born, and Sally started talking about expanding the restaurant and building more rooms … We went for it, it wasn’t a huge success, but it wasn’t an out-and-out failure either. The trouble was it just wasn’t what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to live in Italy either. Don’t get me wrong, I love the place, but it’s not my language, my culture, and I kept getting this feeling that real life was passing me by. Knowing this from our occasional chats on the phone, or from when she came to stay, Bobbie took it upon herself to put me in touch with Ted Gray, who’s now my partner. And the rest, as they say, is history.’
Eva blinked. ‘So where’s Sally now, and Matilda?’
‘Still in Italy, and still loving every minute of it. Sally got married again a couple of years ago to the owner of the stables where Matilda keeps her pony, and Matilda’s threatening to come and live with me too, when it’s time for her to go to uni. That’s if she goes, at the moment she’s saying she probably won’t bother.’
Feeling strangely unsteadied by the fact that he was no longer married, Eva tried to steer her mind from it as she said, ‘How old is she now?’
‘She was fourteen a week ago, so Maddy and I went over for her birthday. Fortunately, Sally and I have managed to stay reasonably good friends, much helped, I have to say, by the arrival on the scene of the dashing Diego, so our get-togethers tend to be fairly civilised.’
‘And what about you?’ Eva dared to ask. ‘Have you married again, or met anyone else?’
‘No, but every now and again I find myself being talked into blind dates, the way we single chaps of un certain âge often are by well-meaning female friends. So far I’ve been a bit of a let-down, I’m afraid, because I haven’t managed to gel with anyone, and I’m told supplies are running low.’
Choking on a laugh, Eva said, ‘Well, I can’t imagine they’re having much of a problem falling for you, but I guess it has to be a two-way thing or there’s just no point.’
‘Exactly.’ He held up his glass. ‘Any chance of a top-up?’
‘Gosh, yes,’ she cried, springing to her feet. ‘Sorry, I’m being a very bad hostess.’
As she went to fetch the bottle she was trying to make up her mind whether to tell him about Don, but in the end she decided not to for fear of how it might be construed. Besides, tonight definitely couldn’t be about her, it could only be about Richie and what kind of relationship, if any, Nick might want to have with him. So far she was daring to feel as optimistic on that front as Bobbie had indicated she should be, and aware of a new lightness coming over her, she refilled their glasses and settled back into her corner of the sofa.
‘So, are you going to tell me about our son?’ he asked softly.
Feeling her heart contract with pride and love, she said, ‘Of course. I just … I wondered …’ Her eyes went down as the shame of what she’d done to Richie crept in from the past, reminding her that it couldn’t be ignored. ‘Did Bobbie ever tell you why I gave him up?’ she made herself ask.
He nodded. ‘Yes, she did, and I don’t have enough words to express how deeply I hated myself for pushing you to it. If I’d known at the time I like to think I’d have stopped you, but with the way things were with Maddy I can’t honestly say that I would have.’
‘Did you … Did you ever see him at that time?’
He shook his head. ‘And that makes me feel even worse, that our child, a tiny defenceless creature, came into the world needing his parents every bit as much as any child could, and I didn’t even go to see him, much less hold him, or offer him a home.’
Knowing the reason why now, Eva was able to say, ‘You weren’t to blame. I was the one who gave him away as if he didn’t matter at all, and believe me, I have never forgiven myself for that, and I never will.’
‘Then you should, because the circumstances you were in back then – that we were both in – meant that no one was in the right place to think straight, let alone make a sensible decision about anything. I believe even Patty, who was always such a rock, had her own problems going on, so the timing of his birth couldn’t have been worse, poor little chap.’
Hearing the tremor in his voice caused her throat to tighten as she thought of her tiny baby being passed around by strangers, because his parents hadn’t been able to accept him. ‘Did Sally ever know?’ she asked hoarsely. ‘Does she know now?’
‘Yes, she knows. It was what terrified her the most, that I would leave her and Maddy, while Maddy was fighting for her life, to be with you and our son.’ He pressed his thumb and forefinger hard into his brows. ‘Maddie was still in hospital when you gave birth,’ he said. ‘It’s a dreadful thing having to choose between your children. I hope to God I never have to go there again.’
Understanding the wretchedness of his dilemma, Eva sat forward to reach for his hand. ‘I guess the important thing now is that we’ve found him,’ she said.
Keeping his head down, he nodded – and realising he needed a moment to get himself together, she let go of his hand and sat back again.
‘I have photographs,’ she told him, when he looked up again. ‘They’re only on my BlackBerry, but they’re still pretty good. Would you like to see them?’
With a roll of his eyes, he said, ‘Now what do you think the answer would be to that?’
Laughing, she hurried over to her bag, and pulling up the shots she’d taken on Sunday, she handed him the phone with directions of how to scroll through.
‘Thank you for sounding like my daughter,’ he said drily. ‘I happen to have one of these myself.’
Feeling absurdly excited to be sharing her pride, she sat down next to him, but before he could get started she said, ‘You might need to prepare yourself for how much he looks like you.’
‘OK,’ he responded, drawing it out.
A moment later he was studying a close-up of Richie in his rugby kit, grinning and looking straight into the lens. Turning to her incredulously, he said, ‘You’re kidding me, right? Apart from my colouring, he’s exactly like you.’
Astonished, but nonetheless thrilled, she looked at Richie’s face and decided that Nick might have a point. ‘His legs are like yours,’ she insisted, and almost blushed as she realised how intimate that might sound.
‘Well, I’m glad they’re not like yours,’ he commented wryly, and moving on to the next shot he whispered a triumphant yes to see the number on Richie’s back.
‘And he’s captain,’ Eva told him, wanting to make sure he understood just how important their son was.
&n
bsp; Next Richie was pushing in the back of the scrum; after that he was diving recklessly at another player’s feet; then there were a few blurry shots that she hoped depicted his speed rather than her ineptitude, and then he was poised ready to score a try. Even Nick cheered when he caught the euphoria of the next one, which was Richie three feet off the ground with three other players reaching for him. Then the same adorable young man was slouched in an armchair next to a Christmas tree, either smiling, poking out his tongue, or putting up a hand saying ‘no pap’, which she had to explain to Nick, until she realised that actually she didn’t because of course that was something he’d understand.
No one, she was thinking to herself, as they went through the shots again, would know that this boy who appeared so full of health, confidence and mischief, had ever lacked for anything, and yet he had, because the most important people of all hadn’t been there for him.
Until now.
Chapter Twenty-One
‘Jas, is anyone in the shop with you?’ Livvy asked via the intercom in the workroom.
‘Two people,’ came the reply. ‘Why? Do you need something?’
‘No, I just want to have a quick chat. Let me know when you’re on your own, OK?’
‘Will do.’
Clicking off again, Livvy continued to pin the Anna Sui-inspired jacket she was creating for a woman who’d come all the way from Oxford to discuss her requirements – and ultimately place an order. Having two more exclusives on the go, her own design of a frock coat, and a Balenciaga-style pant suit, meant she was pretty full-on in the studio these days, but their new part-timer was due to start on Monday, so with Coral increasing her hours after Christmas they were pretty well covered.
What was concerning her more than the workload at the moment was her mother, again. Ever since she’d got back from London, having left Jake there for a few more days, Patty had either been too busy to chat on the phone, or was calling at really odd hours to make sure Livvy was OK.
