by Susan Lewis
‘Of course I am,’ Livvy had grumbled at two fifteen that morning. ‘What are you doing up at this time?’
‘I was having a bit of a problem sleeping,’ Patty confessed, ‘and then I realised I hadn’t spoken to you all day …’
‘So you call me in the middle of the night? Mum! I’m working tomorrow.’
‘I know, I’m sorry. It was thoughtless of me. I just wanted to make sure you’re all right.’
‘Well I won’t be if I can’t get back to sleep. Why don’t you make yourself some cocoa, see if that works.’
‘Good idea.’ Then, ‘I’ll ring off now then.’
‘OK.’ Livvy waited, but her mother didn’t hang up. ‘You’re still there,’ she groaned.
‘Sorry. I was waiting for you to go first.’
‘I’m putting the phone down now.’
‘Actually, before you do, are you at the flat or at Eva’s?’
‘The flat, if you must know. Why?’
‘I was just wondering. So, Eva’s at home on her own?’
‘No, Jasmine’s there tonight.’
‘And Don, I expect. Jasmine will be pleased about that.’
‘I’ve told you already, Mum, Don’s not with Eva and she doesn’t want him back.’
‘I don’t think she means that.’
‘She does, so why don’t you call him?’
‘No, I can’t do that.’
‘Mum, can we please have this conversation at a more civilised hour? I have to be up at six …’
‘Yes, of course, I’m sorry. Good night, darling, sleep well,’ and the line went dead.
Half an hour ago, when Livvy had tried calling her mother, she’d had to leave a message because there was no reply. Jake had rung just after that, wanting to know if it was him, or was their mother losing it.
‘She only rang at six this morning to ask me if I’d seen Don. I mean, why would I have seen Don?’
‘Oh Lor’,’ Livvy murmured, starting to get really worried now. ‘Unless he’s in London. Do you know if he is?’
‘Funnily enough, he doesn’t confide his movements to me.’
‘She’s being really weird at the moment,’ Livvy admitted. ‘You know they’ve broken up, don’t you?’
‘Of course. Is he going back to Eva, do you know? That’s what Mum says.’
‘I know, but whatever she thinks a reunion definitely doesn’t seem to be featuring in Eva’s plans. She’s got too much else going on with Richie and everything.’
‘Can’t wait to meet our new coz. He sounds really cool.’
‘He is. You’ll get on great with him, I know it.’
‘It’s going to be an interesting Christmas.’
‘Tell me about it. It’s really starting to mess with my head just thinking about it. Anyway, I’ll give you a call as soon as I hear something from Mum. Oh, and don’t forget it’s Dad’s birthday on Friday so send a card.’
Now, Livvy was just stepping back to inspect her handiwork when Jasmine came over the intercom saying, ‘OK, all clear. I’m on my own for the moment.’
Wasting no time, Livvy dropped the pins on the table and ran downstairs to find Jasmine carrying a couple of dresses from the fitting room back to the rails.
‘I was wondering if you saw your dad for breakfast this morning,’ Livvy asked, going to pour them both a coffee.
‘Actually, no I didn’t,’ Jasmine replied. ‘I can’t seem to get hold of him at the moment. Have you spoken to him, by any chance?’
Livvy shook her head and passed over a mug. ‘Has he told you that he and my mum have broken up?’
Jasmine’s eyes widened, almost fearfully. ‘No, he hasn’t. Why …? I mean, what …?’
‘My mother seems to think he wants to go back to Eva, or that he should, or that … Actually I don’t know what’s going on with her, I only know that he’s not with her any more, and given the mess she seems to be in, I thought we ought to call him.’
Looking decidedly worried, Jasmine took out her phone and pressed in Don’s number. ‘Hey, Dad, it’s me,’ she said when he answered. ‘Where are you? Did you get my message earlier?’
‘I did,’ he confirmed, ‘and I was about to call. Sorry I couldn’t make breakfast this morning. Is everything OK with you?’
‘Everything’s fine, I’m just a bit worried about you. Livvy told me about you and Patty …’
‘Yes, I’m afraid that’s not good news, and I would have told you myself, but frankly I was hoping to get it sorted out before I had to.’
Wrinkling her nose in confusion, Jasmine looked at Livvy as she said, ‘So what is happening? And where are you?’
‘Right now I’m at Uncle Pete’s in Tonbridge, and I’ll probably stay on for the next couple of days. Patty needs some space, she says, so I’m trying to give it to her.’
Jasmine’s eyes were still on Livvy’s. ‘So you’re not thinking of going back to Eva?’
His tone was dark as he said, ‘I don’t know what Patty’s telling you, but I haven’t seen or spoken to Eva for weeks. Perhaps you can pass that on, as she won’t speak to me.’
‘OK, I will, but actually I don’t really think that’s a good thing, do you, Dad? Just because you don’t want to be with Eva any more doesn’t mean she’s stopped existing, or has got over it already. In fact, she’s still your wife, and according to you, you still care about her, but I wouldn’t say not being in touch at all is the right way to treat someone you care about.’
Loving what she was hearing, Livvy gave her a big smile of encouragement.
‘Of course you’re right,’ he conceded, ‘I’m handling things pretty badly and I … I guess I need to do something about it.’
‘Good, you do that. I have to go now, but don’t forget to let me know where you are in future.’
‘Brilliant,’ Livvy told her as she rang off. ‘He so deserved that. The trouble is, I’m still not sure what to do about Mum.’
Picking up the shop phone as it started to ring, Jasmine said, ‘Hello, Perdita’s, Jasmine speaking.’
‘Hi, it’s me,’ Eva told her. ‘Just checking everything’s OK with you girls, and to let you know that Richie and I are about to leave Chard.’
‘Hey Richie,’ Jasmine called out.
‘Hey Richie,’ Livvy echoed.
‘Hey everyone,’ he called back.
‘We’ll be at the house most of the afternoon,’ Eva continued, ‘though if the rain keeps off we’ll probably pop out for a walk with the odds. I’ll have my phone if you need to get hold of me.’
‘Great,’ Jasmine responded, turning to Livvy with a baffled look. All this usually went without saying, so why was Eva bothering?
‘That’s it, better ring off now,’ Eva told her, ‘we’re about to go into a dip.’
‘Everyone’s acting really strangely at the moment,’ Livvy grumbled after Jasmine related the call. ‘It must be a generational thing, because look at us, we’re OK, aren’t we?’
‘Totally,’ Livvy agreed, and with a shrug of bewilderment she turned to greet a couple who’d just come in the door.
Eva was wiping away tears of laughter as Richie stared at her from a face full of tomato soup that had just exploded from a carton as he opened it.
‘It’s trick soup, isn’t it?’ he demanded, his deadpan expression making it funnier than ever.
Holding her sides, she managed to say, ‘How does it taste?’ and then off she went again as he stuck out his tongue to check.
‘Pretty good,’ he decided, ‘but I reckon it’ll be better hot. Do you have a saucepan big enough for my head?’
Throwing him a roll of kitchen towel, she said, ‘Use the bathroom at the end of the hall. And then,’ she added as he took off that way, ‘we should sort out a bedroom for when you come to stay.’
‘Sounds cool,’ he called back, and her heart lit up like a hundred Christmases. No fuss, no big deal, just sounds cool, to let her know that he was as chilled about staying here as she was to h
ave him. Amazed and heartened by the way nothing ever seemed to faze him, she set about cleaning off the soup-splattered cabinets, while Elvis and Rosie gazed on, having already taken care of the floor. She could only hope that he was up for what else she had in store today, because it was a whole lot bigger than spending the night here.
Hearing her phone bleeping with a text she quickly dried her hands and dug it out of her bag, half expecting it to be a message from Nick. Her heart did a painful somersault when she saw it was from Don.
Just wanted to say how pleased I am for you about Richie.
Forcing herself not to be angry, since she had no intention of allowing her cheating, lying husband to ruin today, she immediately deleted the message, put the phone away again and carried on with what she was doing. The fact that it had taken him so long to be in touch over something he knew to be so vital to her completely nullified the sentiment as far as she was concerned, but even if he did mean it she had too much else on her mind to care.
Since returning from London a day later than planned, she’d been focusing entirely on today since it could – and probably would – turn out to be one of the most important days of Richie’s life. Feeling a shudder of nerves passing through her, she checked her phone again just in case she’d missed a message from Nick, but she hadn’t. It wasn’t that she was expecting one, particularly, but since they’d seen each other on Wednesday they’d spent hours talking on the phone, mostly about Richie, and had got together for lunch yesterday to finalise their decision on how best to go forward. The fact that he was being so sensitive to their son in the planning of this, and so thoughtful towards her, was making her so happy and yet anxious that she barely knew how she was feeling from one moment to the next.
‘What I want to know is how you feel about him now,’ Carrie-Anne had demanded when she’d called from Brazil to find out how the first meeting in sixteen years had gone between Nick and Eva.
‘All I can tell you,’ Eva had responded, ‘is that it wasn’t difficult to see why I fell so hard back then.’
‘Oh my God!’ Carrie-Anne squealed excitedly. ‘It went that well. Of course, I knew it would …’
‘No you did not, you were as anxious as I was, just a tad better at hiding it. Anyway, please don’t get carried away …’
‘But this is exactly what you need …’
‘Carrie-Anne, stop! It was all a very long time ago, we’re completely different people now, and anyway, this isn’t about me and Nick, it’s about Richie. He’s the only one who matters, to both of us …’
‘I appreciate that, but if his parents get along, or better still get back together …’
‘I’m not listening to any more of this. My head’s all over the place as it is, and you’re making things ten times worse.’
‘OK, just make sure you keep me up to speed with everything, won’t you? I’m not due back in London until after the New Year, but if you need the flat, you know it’s yours. Except he has one of his own, doesn’t he?’
Smiling to herself as she emptied a fresh carton of soup into a saucepan, Eva breezed past Carrie-Anne’s romantic scenarios to a place where she and Nick were simply good friends – and, more importantly, good parents, because Richie was really all that mattered.
‘OK, young man, soup’s under way,’ she declared, when he returned from the bathroom all tousled hair and shiny cheeks. ‘How many slices of bread?’
‘Six, please,’ he replied, sinking into a chair.
Eva’s jaw dropped.
‘Two each for them,’ he explained, pointing at the odds, ‘and two for me.’
Laughing and rolling her eyes, she said, ‘You spoil them and they know it, look how they watch your every move.’
Grinning down at them, he gave them both a quick ruffle before getting up again to go and wash his hands. ‘Are you having some?’ he asked, noticing only one bowl and spoon on the counter top.
‘I had a huge breakfast,’ she lied. Food definitely wasn’t on the agenda for her today, at least not until the next few hours were behind her – and perhaps not even then.
‘So, tree decorating this afternoon,’ he said as she followed him to the table with his soup and bread. ‘Do you reckon the one we chose is big enough?’
Shooting him a look, since he knew that the gardener had been forced to chop the top off the monster that was now in the sitting room in order to get it in there, she said, ‘Actually, before we go and get everything down from the attic, there’s something I want to talk to you about.’
His eyes came worriedly to hers. ‘I hope I haven’t done anything wrong,’ he said, seeming to mean it.
‘Don’t even think it,’ she assured him. ‘No, what I want to discuss is something that you might have been wanting to ask me about, but haven’t quite known how to.’
For a moment he seemed to be searching his mind, then his cheeks reddened as he said, ‘Actually, yeah, there is one thing.’
‘Go on,’ she prompted gently.
He glanced at her uneasily, then back to his soup. ‘Sadie said I shouldn’t say anything, because you might not want to talk about it, but …’
As his words ran out Eva put a hand over his. ‘Are you wondering about your real father?’ she asked.
His face seemed to tighten as he nodded. ‘If you don’t know who he was,’ he said belligerently, ‘or if he was mean to you, or anything …’
‘His name is Nick Jensen,’ she interrupted gently, ‘and he was a photographer back in the days when I was modelling.’
His eyes sharpened and his hostility seemed to recede as he said, ‘Isn’t that who took the iconic shot of you?’
Feeling her heart melt that he knew, she said, ‘That’s right. We were very close back then and who knows, we might still be if life hadn’t intervened in the way it did.’
He was still watching her closely, his lunch apparently forgotten.
‘He was married to somebody else when I fell pregnant with you,’ she explained. ‘I know we were wrong to be having an affair, but I think it’s important for you to know that we loved each other very much and if circumstances had been different …’ she took a breath, ‘we’d never have let you go.’
His eyes were so intense now that she put out a hand to touch his cheek.
‘You already know I had you four months after the attack,’ she continued, ‘and that the reason you were adopted was because I … Well, I was in a very bad place at the time, and I’ve already told you how deeply I regret the decision I made. What I didn’t know then, and actually only found out this week, was what was happening in your father’s life at the time.’
Richie still didn’t speak, simply went on looking at her as she said, ‘I could tell you, but if you’re willing to meet him he’d like to tell you himself.’
There was a moment before Richie seemed to connect with what she’d just said. ‘He wants to meet me?’ he asked, almost incredulously.
Smiling as a lump formed in her throat, Eva said, ‘Yes, he does. Very much, in fact.’
Richie swallowed and turned to stare out of the window.
Not sure how to read this reaction, Eva decided to continue anyway. ‘We got together when I was in London this week,’ she said, ‘and, surprise, surprise, we hardly talked about anything else but you. He wanted to know everything about you, and I did my best, but you’re so special, and so incredibly like him that it would be wonderful if he could meet you to see for himself …’
‘I thought I looked like you.’
Laughing, she said, ‘Funnily enough that’s what he said when I showed him the shots I took last weekend, but you definitely have his colouring, and I’m quickly beginning to realise how much of his character you seem to have inherited too.’
Richie half frowned. ‘I guess that’s good, yeah?’
‘Very,’ she assured him.
Suddenly his eyes filled with tears, and belatedly realising what an enormous impact all this was having on him, she quickly got up t
o cradle his head against her. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have sprung it on you like that,’ she said, holding him tight. ‘We’ve hardly had time to get to know one another, and here I am, rushing things when you need time to get used to it all. But I promise you, nothing has to happen until you feel ready.’
Turning away from her, he said angrily, ‘It’s really dumb to cry.’
‘No it isn’t. It’s perfectly understandable.’
Wiping his eyes with the heels of his hands, he stared moodily into the garden, more upset, she suspected, about making a spectacle of himself than about anything she’d told him. ‘So what’s he like?’ he asked gruffly. ‘I mean, I know what you said, but is he still married? Does he have any children?’
‘He split up from his wife quite a while ago, but you have two stepsisters.’
He took a moment to digest this. ‘How old are they?’
‘Maddy’s twenty and lives in London. Matilda’s fourteen and lives in Italy with her mother.’
A lengthy pause elapsed as he absorbed this new information. He not only had a father, but two stepsisters, one older, the other younger than him and apparently living abroad. ‘I’ve got to tell Sadie,’ he said. ‘She’ll be like … no way.’
Feeling for the way he was holding on to his familiar connections, Eva said, ‘Why don’t you call her?’
He turned to look at her. ‘Does she know? Did you tell her you were going to talk about my dad today?’
‘I told your aunt Izzie on the phone last night, so I imagine Sadie knows by now.’
He sat with that for a moment, but instead of reaching for the phone, he said, ‘So where is he? Does he live round here?’
‘He has a home in Hampshire, which is where he is now. I told him I’d call if you want to see him.’
Richie nodded and swallowed loudly. ‘I do want to meet him,’ he said tentatively.
Eva smiled. ‘He’ll be very pleased to know that.’
Slumping back in his chair, he said, ‘This is totally wild. It’s completely … like awesome.’
Catching hold of his hands, Eva squeezed them hard. ‘Like I said, we don’t have to do anything until you feel ready to.’
