Diane looked at the tea towel and was about to say something but thought better of it. Holly was in no mood to be soothed. “If you’re sure?” she said, more as a question than a statement.
“I’m sure,” replied Holly through gritted teeth and with only the slightest hint of hysteria. “You get back in there with Tom. I’m sure there’s still plenty of catching up to do.”
“All right then,” Diane told her with an unconvincing smile. She still didn’t look like she was going anywhere but then the doorbell rang.
“That’ll be Jocelyn,” Holly gasped, looking around in panic and wondering how long she could leave the oven unattended before the whole kitchen imploded. Jocelyn hadn’t met Tom’s parents and she barely knew Tom. Holly would be a poor hostess if she didn’t do the introductions. She did a little jig in the middle of the kitchen as she went to go one way and then the other.
“Are you all right? I can take over if you like while you get the door,” Diane suggested with enthusiasm.
For a split second, Holly really was tempted to escape the kitchen with her opened bottle of wine and leave the cooking in more capable hands. There must be something Diane could salvage from the chaos, but she was going to have a hard job recreating sprouts from the green mush bubbling in a pan hidden at the back of the stove. “No, I’m the one who made this mess and I’m the one who has to cook my way out of it. Could you see to Jocelyn for me?”
“If you’re sure,” Diane conceded reluctantly. She backed out of the kitchen as if she were too scared to turn her back on the bubbling bedlam.
Two minutes later, Jocelyn popped her head around the door.
“Diane said you’re determined to do this on your own, but …” Jocelyn cast a wary look over the kitchen. “Are you sure you don’t want some help?”
“I’m fine,” Holly replied, with a fixed grin that was starting to make her cheeks ache. It was difficult enough keeping track of the countless miniature disasters that were appearing by the minute without the constant battle of keeping out the good Samaritans. “I’m just sorry I can’t come out to do some proper introductions.”
“Oh, don’t worry about us. Diane and Jack are lovely and I’m getting reacquainted with your gorgeous husband. You really shouldn’t leave me alone with him.”
“I’ll trust you,” smiled Holly. “Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got a dinner to bring back to life.”
“You know where I am if you need me,” Jocelyn told her as she, too, backed out of the kitchen. “And you might want to check the oven. I think I can smell something burning,” she shouted before disappearing from view.
Holly opened the oven door and a cloud of smoke hit her between the eyes. She was busily wafting the smoke out through the kitchen door when Tom appeared. “How’s it going?” he asked.
Holly was just about to scream at him to get out of the kitchen but he had picked up the wine and was refilling her glass.
“You look like you could do with a drink,” he told her.
“I really shouldn’t,” she said. “But one more glass couldn’t do any harm. I think all the damage that could be done, has been done.”
“It smells delicious,” Tom said brightly. He was deliberately avoiding making eye contact with Holly or looking toward the billowing smoke coming from the oven.
“You’re a big fat liar, but I love you for saying it. Is everyone all right in there?”
“Yes, they’re getting on like a house on fire. Sorry, no pun intended.” Holly hit him with a tea towel before letting him continue. “Jocelyn and my mum are chatting away like old friends.”
Holly knocked back her glass of wine and lifted up the empty glass for a refill.
Tom lifted up the bottle to show Holly that it, too, was now empty.
“There’s plenty more where that came from,” she replied, tipping her head toward the fridge.
“How long will dinner be?” Tom asked tentatively. He was probably calculating whether she could serve dinner before she was totally trashed.
“By my guess, it was ready half an hour ago. It’s now overcooked and burnt.”
“At least we don’t have to clear space in here and can eat in the conservatory,” Tom commented. He braved a look at the kitchen table, which didn’t have an inch of spare space.
Holly took a deep breath to clear her head. “Oh, I give up,” she said. “Give me a hand serving this up. Do you think I should stick a pizza in the oven just in case?”
“It’ll be fine,” Tom assured her.
The smell of fresh paint in the conservatory was quickly beaten into submission by the aroma of stewed vegetable with the faintest hint of burning. It was early afternoon but the day was already fading fast. At least the subdued lighting made the food look almost edible, thought Holly. They had borrowed a long table and chairs from the tea shop to seat them all.
“It’s lovely,” smiled Jocelyn, taking her first mouthful of Holly’s roast dinner. Holly heard a distinct crunch as Jocelyn bit down on a roast potato.
“Delicious,” confirmed Diane sweetly.
“It reminds me of Diane’s cooking,” Jack offered. Diane raised an eyebrow at her husband. “In the early days, I mean,” he clarified.
“You mean to say Mum couldn’t cook either when you first got married?” Tom was laughing but one look at Holly silenced him.
“It’s awful, isn’t it?” Holly admitted. She took a long swig of wine to wash away the bitter taste of disappointment.
There was a chorus of denials and compliments and everyone made a concerted effort to fill their mouths with food.
“It’s nice to have a home-cooked meal. You don’t know how much I’ve missed being home,” Tom told them all.
“And we’ve missed you,” Holly replied. She was staring intently at Tom but from the corner of her eye, she could see beyond him and into the garden. She could see the pale form of the moondial in its dust sheet, glowing in the twilight like an ever-present ghost.
Holly sipped her wine, listening intently as Tom described his time in Haiti. The experience had left its mark and it was going to take a long time before he’d be able to put it all behind him, if he ever could. Holly was more certain than ever that putting off telling Tom about the moondial was the right thing to do.
“It’s just so frightening to see lives and communities wiped out in one single event,” he was telling Jocelyn.
“None of us can take life for granted,” agreed Holly sadly.
Jocelyn gave Holly a guarded look but said nothing.
“I’m sure this chicken didn’t see it coming,” Jack said, laughing at his own joke until his wife prodded him.
“It’s a lovely conservatory,” Diane said, trying to move the conversation to safer ground.
“Yes, Billy’s done a lovely job,” agreed Jocelyn.
“We came up with the design together,” Tom said proudly. “Mostly Billy, I have to admit. And then of course there was my dear wife’s interference. The doors were supposed to be at the side, but Holly changed the plans at the last minute.”
“Yes,” added Holly. “You can always change plans, or they can be changed for you. Makes me wonder why we bother with them in the first place.”
Her head was becoming a fuzzy mess, a mixture of too much wine and the growing realization that she really had so little control over her future. Tears were welling in her eyes and she became aware that the others had fallen silent and were all looking at her with growing concern. She hadn’t cried since the fateful trip to Hardmonton Hall and she had hoped she could contain her tears once more, but they never seemed to be too far from the surface. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I need a glass of water,” she said, jumping up and quickly heading out to the kitchen.
She took a long drink of water as she tried to clear the fog in her head.
“Hol, what’s wrong?” Tom had followed her out, and he walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, resting his head on her shoulder.
“I just don’t think I like plans anymore. You can’t always assume that you can have everything you want in life. Life doesn’t work like that.”
“Is this about our five-year plan? Have you changed your mind?” asked Tom. He kept his tone light but his body had tensed.
Holly didn’t answer him. She needed to be sober to have that particular conversation, and preferably when they weren’t in the middle of entertaining guests.
“Please tell me you still want a baby,” Tom persisted. He was used to Holly’s reluctance but he had obviously assumed that all her doubts had been put to rest now that their plans for the future had been committed to paper.
Holly turned to face him, a swell of anger in her throat as she sensed herself being forced into a corner. “I want to be a mother, yes. I want that with all my heart. But why do we always have to want more? Why can’t we just appreciate what we have now?” she hissed, trying to keep her voice low.
“Do you think I don’t know that? After what I’ve seen?” Tom countered.
“Then you should know that you can’t count on the people you love being around tomorrow.”
They stood glaring at each other for the longest time. It was Holly who broke the silence first. “I’m sorry,” she gasped. “Can we not do this now?”
Tom sighed and gently kissed Holly on her forehead. “You lead the way,” he said with a flourish of his hand, pointing the way back to their guests.
There was gentle laughter rippling around the dining table but Tom and Holly brought their awkward silence into the room with them.
“Are you all right, Holly?” Diane asked.
“A little bit too much cooking wine, I think,” Holly admitted. She lifted up her glass of water and tried to let go of her anger and fear, but once again the ghostly shroud in the garden caught her attention. If only the moondial would loosen its grip.
“I expect it’s taking a while getting used to this lean and keen stranger who just appeared on your doorstep,” replied Diane.
“Hey, I’m no stranger,” challenged Tom.
“No stranger than usual,” Holly added. Their eyes met for the first time since returning to their guests. A wordless apology passed between them and as everyone laughed at her joke, Holly sensed the tension leave the room.
Diane was next to have a go at Tom’s looks. “You have lost a fair bit of weight on this trip, but at least your hair’s starting to grow back. I never thought I’d say this, but after years of nagging you about the knots and tats in your hair, I think I actually miss the long-haired Tom.”
“Me too,” smiled Holly. “But any version of Tom is better than none.”
“Hear, hear,” Jocelyn said, raising her glass. “He looks pretty tasty to me.”
“Tastier than this dinner anyway,” muttered Holly. “But you’ll be pleased to know that Jocelyn has provided the dessert. Anyone hungry?”
The afternoon ebbed away with no more cross words. Tom and Holly said their good-byes to their guests as the final rays of sunlight gave up the ghost for the night.
“Tell me truthfully,” Tom asked as they closed the front door. “Are you having doubts about our relationship? Is that what you meant about not being here tomorrow? Because if you are, I won’t give up without a fight. I love you, Holly, and if my being away is causing a rift between us, then I’ll stop. I don’t want to lose you.”
“I know you don’t,” replied Holly with a truth that Tom couldn’t begin to understand, not yet, hopefully not ever. “I just think we spend too much time looking to the future, looking at what’s missing, instead of appreciating what we have now. I don’t want you to ever look back and think, Hey, I was happy then and I didn’t even know it. I had my wife, I had my dreams, and it was enough.”
Tom looked at her with an intensity that made Holly feel uneasy, as if he were looking deep into her soul and was about to uncover the secrets she was keeping from him. He seemed to be struggling to find the words, so he simply wrapped her in his arms and held on tightly. “Right now, Holly, you’re right. This is enough. This is more than enough.”
10
Move your hand a little bit. Ooh, that’s good. Now just a little bit more,” Holly said with growing excitement. “No, no, not that much. Now move to the left a bit. Slowly does it, nearly there. That’s it; that’s it. Don’t move!”
“I’m getting tired,” groaned Tom.
“Stop complaining. We’ve only just started.”
“This wasn’t exactly how I imagined spending my time at home. Seminaked, yes. Experimenting with lots of positions, yes. Standing in the middle of your studio, holding a plastic doll? Not exactly part of my plan.”
“We’ve already wasted a whole weekend in bed,” Holly reminded him.
“Wasted?”
Holly grinned and acknowledged every aching muscle in her satiated body. “OK, not wasted. Trouble is, I may be able to take time off from the tea shop while you’re home but I can’t afford to fall behind schedule with Mrs. Bronson’s commission. I love you and adore you and, if nothing else, this only gives me more time to stare at your gorgeous if not slightly undernourished body.”
Holly had practically completed the base. A dark, nebulous spiral had emerged from the large stone block and, unlike the scaled version, this one had the finer detail. There were eerie suggestions of figures that made up its curves, depicting the generations that came before, the foundations from the past that supported the future.
The upper section was going to be more of a challenge and Holly wanted to work up some additional sketches before she started constructing the wire skeletons that would support the mother and child figures that were to be molded from clay. She had persuaded Tom to strip down to his waist and drape a dust sheet around himself, holding a baby doll in his arms. Tom wasn’t exactly the figure of the mother she had in mind, but he was certainly less of the man she had waved good-bye to.
“Well, if you’d seen what it was like, you’d have come back half-starved, too. It wasn’t that we weren’t well catered for; we were. But I couldn’t switch off what was happening around me; none of us could,” Tom had told her.
When he had set off to Haiti he had been a highly polished, slick anchorman in the making with his cropped hair and shiny suit, but his transformation had shocked Holly. He’d appeared on-screen reporting in Haiti and each time Holly saw him, he looked just a little bit less polished, a little less slick. In some ways, Holly had been glad to see him reverting back to his old disheveled self, but he had gone beyond disheveled and acquired a look that was gaunt, tortured even. It was more than evident that the changes weren’t only physical.
“Well, you’re home now. I know you’re not going to be able to forget what you’ve seen, but you can’t fix it, not everything, not on your own. You are making a difference, Tom. It’s a demanding job but it’s the job you always dreamed of, and who knows where it will lead?”
“Straight back to the studio, that’s where. It’s only a secondment, remember. What difference will I be able to make then?”
“You’ll make a difference,” Holly said, in a weak attempt to reassure him. “Now stop moving and keep your arm straight.”
“I know I shouldn’t complain. It’ll be worth it in the end. I can’t wait to be a dad,” he said with growing excitement as he cradled the plastic doll in his arms.
“We’ll see,” whispered Holly, desperately trying to focus on her sketch and not resurrect the drunken argument that had been so narrowly avoided at the disastrous Sunday lunch.
“What’s happened, Holly? Last time I was home you were so keen to start a family. Now every time I raise the subject, you’re freezing me out again.” Tom had kept to his pose, so he wasn’t looking at her, but still he sensed the sadness that was threatening to overwhelm her.
“What if we can’t have children?”
“Of course we’ll be able to have children. Just look at this baby-making physique.” Tom flexed nonexistent muscles in a rather scrawny ar
m as if to prove the point.
“Would our relationship survive if we couldn’t?” Holly’s voice echoed across the studio. The photos hanging around the room swayed mournfully in an invisible breeze, their hopeful smiles mocking her. She wished she knew with absolute certainty the answer to the one question that was still haunting her. Would the moondial ever show her that she could be a mother and survive to watch them grow? Holly visualized rain trickling down a windowpane. Each raindrop represented an unborn child and, in her mind’s eye, each one trickled toward the same path. Would there be no way to avoid paying her dues to the moondial for the rest of her life?
Tom finally broke from his pose and looked over to her. “We’d survive anything, Hol. I promise. But it’s not going to come to that. As long as it’s still what you want. You do still want kids, don’t you?”
“I do. You wouldn’t believe how much I do now, but …” stumbled Holly just as the door to the studio swung open, bringing with it a blast of cold air.
“Whoops, am I interrupting?” Billy was standing at the studio door, covering his eyes from the sight he’d just seen.
“It’s all right Billy. You can look,” Holly said, casually wiping the corners of her eyes in case either of them noticed her newly formed tears.
“I hope he isn’t naked underneath that sheet,” warned Billy.
“It could be worse. He could be standing there without the sheet!” Holly laughed as Billy pulled a face of disgust.
“Hey, I take exception to that,” complained Tom, who was now trying to flex his muscles and hold on to the doll at the same time.
Holly and Billy stood staring at Tom’s less-than-manly stance. “I think you should pick your models a little more carefully next time,” suggested Billy.
“I thought us men were supposed to stick together,” replied Tom indignantly.
Holly had a feeling this childish banter could go on all morning. “Listen, boys, I’ve got work to do. Billy, you’re distracting my model. What is it we can help you with?”
“I was only dropping by to say hello,” Billy answered sheepishly.
Yesterday's Sun Page 18
