by Susan Lewis
Now, after a protracted parting from the in-laws, who were clearly taking Ben’s departure in their stride, they turned the corner to walk towards Ali’s parents’ shop where Ben was spending the night in the flat upstairs, ready for their early morning start. Lucy could sense his tension growing and was trying hard to come up with a way to put his mind at rest, but with no Joe there to help her she was becoming more enmeshed in her irrational fear than ever.
‘Mum,’ Ben said, taking her arm and letting the others walk on.
As she turned to look at him she tried to smile away the concern in his eyes.
‘It’s going to be all right,’ he told her softly.
‘I know, I know,’ she replied, the words barely making it past the tightness in her throat. ‘I’m – I’m not going to do anything stupid, I promise.’
He crooked a smile and chucked her under the chin. ‘Dad should be here,’ he said quietly, keeping his eyes on hers.
Though it was rare for him to criticise his father, and she certainly never encouraged it, he was right, Joe really ought to be with them tonight.
‘Oh no, you’re shaking,’ Ben said miserably.
Lucy produced a rough sort of laugh. ‘I’ll be fine once it’s over,’ she assured him. ‘Promise.’
‘You have to be strong for Hanna,’ he reminded her.
‘Of course.’
Still looking anxious, he tightened his hand on her arm and started to walk on. ‘One hug when we get there, OK?’ he said. ‘Then you have to go.’
Lucy’s nod was more a jerk of her head. She’d stopped envisaging a plane crash now, or a fatal plunge into a canyon, or a murdering beggar with a dagger. She wasn’t imagining anything at all, and yet she was still perspiring profusely and shaking hard enough to make herself sick.
‘You didn’t get like this when Dad went on Saturday,’ Ben pointed out.
Taking a breath she said, ‘I know, but he’s a grown-up, he can take care of himself.’
‘So can I, now.’
‘You can,’ she agreed, trying to mean it, ‘but I’m your mother, so it’s my job to worry.’ How was she managing to sound calm when inside she was in such turmoil? Please God keep him safe. Don’t let anything bad happen to him. They were almost outside the shop now. She wanted to stop the world and beg Ben to change his mind. Why couldn’t he stay here where she knew he was safe and could take care of things if anything went wrong? What if he got lost in some godforsaken part of the planet and she never found him again? She could feel the fear burning like flames inside her and she couldn’t bear it.
‘You can do this,’ he murmured in her ear as they reached the gate to the shop’s backyard. ‘You’re going to be fine.’
She took a gulp of air and closed her eyes. ‘Of course I am,’ she assured him, and turned into his arms as he wrapped them around her.
‘Oh God, please don’t let her start going off on one,’ Hanna muttered. ‘She is sooo embarrassing when she does.’
‘You wait till you’re a mother,’ Lucy gasped, still clinging to Ben.
‘I promise, I’ll be nothing like you,’ Hanna told her.
Lucy felt Ben starting to laugh, and somehow managed to find a smile of her own. ‘I’ll call when I get home to say goodnight,’ she whispered.
‘If you must,’ he whispered back.
‘Mum, your phone’s ringing,’ Hanna informed her, and digging into the back pocket of Lucy’s jeans she produced the mobile. ‘It’s Dad.’
‘Great timing,’ Ben murmured.
Aware of how badly her hands were still shaking, Lucy let Hanna click on the line, then took the phone saying, ‘Hi. How did you know to ring now?’
‘A little birdie told me,’ he replied.
Lucy’s eyes went to Hanna. She must have texted him as they left the restaurant.
‘She thought you could do with a bit of moral support,’ Joe said, ‘and I expect she’s right. How are you doing? It’s not too bad is it?’
‘It’s not great.’
‘Where are you now?’
‘Outside Ali’s. They’re about to go in.’
‘Then put him on and let me have the last word for now while you get yourself off home.’
‘You have to be joking! I need to say a proper goodbye …’
‘Lucy, you don’t know how to do such a thing where your children are concerned, so off you trot, there’s a good girl.’
Lucy looked at Ben and felt as though she was moving on to some distant, other plain where she could no longer reach him. She was so afraid, she didn’t know what to do. She could hear the woman who screamed in her nightmares starting to scream again. It was her mother, she was sure of it, or perhaps it was her. She was banging on doors that refused to open, the world was moving so fast it was becoming a blur and she was being left behind.
‘Mum, come on,’ Hanna urged, slipping an arm around her. ‘You can’t show Ben up in front of our friends. I won’t let you.’
In her ear, Joe said, ‘Lucy, go with Hanna.’
Lucy was still looking at Ben. She wanted to put her hands around his face and never let go. If she could she’d push him right back inside her womb. Please God don’t let this be the last time I see him, she was begging inside. Don’t take him away from me. I won’t be able to go on without him.
‘Let me speak to Dad,’ Ben said, and taking the phone he turned towards the gate.
‘Let’s go now,’ Hanna whispered, tightening her arm round Lucy. ‘I’ll come back later for the phone.’
Lucy’s mind was still spinning. She could hear the roar of an engine, the slamming of doors, a voice shouting, but she couldn’t make any sense of it.
‘What?’ Hanna asked.
Lucy looked at her and shook her head. Then, registering what Hanna had just said, she told her, ‘You can’t go out on your own at night.’
‘Duh,’ Hanna said, rolling her eyes.
‘I’ll wait here till you turn the corner,’ Ben told her, handing back the phone.
Taking it, Lucy looked into his handsome young face. Wave after wave of dread was coming over her.
‘Come on,’ Hanna said.
‘Go,’ Ben whispered.
Lucy wanted to, but she couldn’t.
‘Mum!’ Hanna cried.
Mummy! Mummy! A child’s voice was echoing through her head. She clapped her hands over her face.
The next thing she knew Ben had an arm around her and was walking her down the street. ‘I’m going to stay at home tonight,’ he told her, ‘and leave early in the morning.’
Lucy nodded. Though she guessed he was angry and embarrassed, she simply didn’t have it in her to tell him to go back. Nor could she assure him that it would be any easier tomorrow, because she already knew that it wouldn’t.
Chapter Five
‘SIMON, HI, IT’S me,’ Sarah said into her brother’s voicemail. ‘Call me back when you can.’
After ringing off she checked the clock, and calculating that it was nine in the morning New York time she dialled her sister’s number next. ‘Hi Becks, please don’t tell me I’ve got you up.’
‘Are you kidding?’ Becky laughed. ‘I’ve already done the gym and now I’m about to head off to a meeting. Is everything OK?’
‘Yes, yes, everything’s cool.’
‘Oh, hang on, let me get rid of whoever this is. Don’t go away.’
Wondering exactly where her sister thought she might go, Sarah wandered over to the back door of the manor to gaze out across the cracked stone terracing with its jaunty weeds and crumbling walls, down over the billowing acres of gardens that rose and dipped in a mass of overgrown pathways, bedraggled flower beds and dried-up lawns. At the furthest point, where a dense hedgerow separated their land from Farmer Hardy’s, was a rocky, meandering brook that had never been visible from the house, unlike the view of the magnificent bridges spanning the Severn Estuary, which flowed and glinted like a silvery ribbon out to the far horizon. Even in its neglected state
Sarah loved the garden, mainly for all the happy memories it evoked. Their old tyre swing was still hanging from the horse chestnut where their father had tied it over thirty years ago, and parts of the slide he’d built were nestled in amongst the undergrowth close to one of the rusting pergolas. It wasn’t difficult to envisage him standing at the bottom, eyes twinkling, hands outstretched ready to catch them as they flew towards him, when he’d scoop them up and spin them round and round in gleeful triumph.
Would she ever stop missing him? Would the emptiness he and her son had left behind ever go away? Knowing what a special relationship they’d shared was sometimes a comfort, because she could think of them being together, but it didn’t always work, because more than anything she wanted them back.
‘OK, so to what do I owe this pleasure?’ Becky demanded, coming back on the line. ‘Where are you, by the way? And please don’t tell me still in Cromstone.’
Sarah braced herself. ‘I could lie,’ she suggested.
‘Oh Sarah …’
‘Becky, don’t.’
‘Sweetie, you have to come out of hiding and start getting on with your life. You’ve been there for over a year now … ‘
‘I know, I know,’ Sarah cut in before the nag could gather steam. Of course Becky was right, in fact Becky was usually right about everything, but Becky wasn’t as afraid of the world as Sarah had become. Nor did Becky work in the cut-throat world of journalism. ‘I’ve sent a couple of emails to some old contacts,’ Sarah told her, knowing it was what her high-energy, totally focused personal coach of a sister would want to hear, even though it wasn’t true. ‘I’m kind of out of the loop now though, so it won’t be easy.’
‘Nothing is, Sarah, but you know I’m here to help. As soon as you’re ready to start launching your comeback we’ll make sure you present yourself in a way that can’t fail. Are you eating these days?’
Sarah rolled her eyes. ‘Enough to keep me alive. Anyway …’
‘So you haven’t put on any weight? Sweetie, too skinny is ageing, and I have to tell you, the last time I saw you I had quite a shock. We could almost pass for the same age, and while that might be good for me at thirty-six, it definitely isn’t for you at thirty-one.’
‘I’m eating,’ Sarah told her firmly, ‘and I promise I’m trying to get myself together. Right now that’s the best I can do. So, do you want to hear the reason for my call?’
‘Of course, but is it going to be long? If so, I’ll call you back on the mobile so we can talk while I walk. I can’t be late for this …’
‘It won’t take long. I just want to know if you’re still OK about me selling some more stuff from the house. Mum’s fine with it, but …’
‘Sarah, I want you to do whatever makes you happy, but if it’s money you need …’
‘Please don’t offer me any.’
‘Just a loan …’
‘Please, Becky. The closest I want to come to a handout is your word that you really don’t mind me selling our heirlooms.’
‘Heirlooms?’ Becky laughed. ‘There’s nothing of any value there.’
‘I know, but whatever I can raise will go towards sprucing up the house and garden, not straight into my pocket. That way it still kind of goes to you and Simon.’
‘Very admirable, sweetie, but I thought we’d agreed, you need to start living again, and focusing on tarting the old place up is going to keep you there.’
‘But we can’t just abandon it. It’s where we grew up, and it meant everything to Dad …’ Her voice faltered, forcing her to break off.
‘I know it did,’ Becky said softly, ‘and I promise, I want to see it restored to its best too, but it’s going to take a fortune to do it, and I’m worried about you disengaging from the world. You’re still so young …’
‘Please don’t start sounding like Mum, one of you’s enough. Anyway, I’m hoping to get a job in the village.’
There was a moment’s charged silence before Becky said, ‘This is not what I want to hear, Sarah. Working in a shop, or …’
‘With the local auction room,’ Sarah cut in sharply. ‘I don’t know if they need anyone yet, but they’re about to go under new management and the woman who’s taking over is …’
‘Probably going to exploit you.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Becky, will you at least try to have some confidence in me? I’m not ready to leave here yet, OK? And my own money is running out so I have to sell some of our possessions. If, by some miracle, there does turn out to be anything of value then obviously I’ll split the proceeds with you and Simon …’
‘Oh puhleeze, like we’re going to take it. All we care about, Sarah, is that you’re setting yourself on the road to recovery. Now tell me, when did you last speak to Mum?’
Trying not to bristle at the tell me, Sarah said, ‘Last night. She sounded quite up.’
‘Well, there’s a relief. The medication’s obviously still working. You know, I keep worrying that you’ve inherited her depressive gene, because it’s looking …’
‘Becky, you’re starting to annoy me now.’
‘I’m just saying …’
‘If you’d lost your son as well as your father, and your husband had got another woman pregnant …’
‘Darling, I’m not trying to diminish what you’ve been through, please don’t ever think that, but like I said a moment ago, you’ve been there a long time now, mourning and hiding yourself away, just like Mum used to. For God’s sake, some of us are still in therapy about the way she carried on.’
‘You’ve never told her that, have you?’
‘No, of course not, but maybe I should.’
‘Please don’t. She can’t help her depressions …’
‘Sweetie, I’m sorry to interrupt, but if we’re going to continue this I really have to call you back on the mobile.’
‘Don’t worry, you’ve already answered my question.’
‘That’s good. I’ll call you tomorrow, OK? Love you, and you can call me any time, you know that.’
As the line went dead Sarah dropped her head in her hands and tried with all her might to suppress the awful neediness rising up inside her. She hated being alone, yet she seemed stuck in her isolation and being nagged by her family wasn’t helping. Still, at least Becky hadn’t asked, as she occasionally did, if she’d heard from Kelvin, in spite of knowing that the split had been clean and final. Kelvin had kept what was his, the apartment and everything in it, and she had kept what was hers: clothes, computer and all the books and CDs. He hadn’t even bothered to try hanging on to the first-edition, leather-bound volume of poetry she’d given him on their wedding day. Nor had he staked a claim on any of the music that had been such a wonderfully romantic part of their marriage. What a slap in the face that had been – along with all the others – knowing that he had no desire to cherish anything they’d once shared.
Turning back into the large oak kitchen, where sunlight was gleaming off the dangling copper pans, and the juicy fat garlic strings – imports from her mother’s local village – looked almost ready to explode with flavour, she walked on through to the shabby, but recently dusted, front parlour to sit at her father’s desk. For some reason she still couldn’t think of it as hers, even though she was the only one who used it now. Wouldn’t it be marvellous if she’d inherited his talent for writing, not as a journalist – her former career – but as a novelist, or a biographer, like him. His gift for bringing the subjects of his research to life with his ‘unique brand of wit and pathos’, to quote one critic, was, to quote another, ‘unparalleled’. The literary world had lost one of its giants the day he’d died, someone had written in one of his obituaries, which had seemed to her an odd thing to say when her father had been quite a slight man with, it had to be said, no great affection for the fame he had acquired. She might be biased, but, as far as she was concerned, he was the most wonderful man – and father – in the entire world, so it simply didn’t seem possible that it was managin
g to carry on turning without him.
They were all better people for having had him in their lives. He’d had a way of bringing out the best in everyone, of making them believe in themselves and find courage to face life’s challenges when they felt sure they had none. She needed him now in a way she never had before. The void he and Jack had left in her life was so vast, and it just seemed to get deeper and deeper.
‘Oh Daddy,’ she whispered brokenly. ‘Won’t you speak to me please, in any way you can? I need to know if you and Jack are together. Please don’t let him be afraid. He needs you to take care of him.’
As the silence seemed to close in around her she looked at the vases and fruit bowls she’d freed from cobwebs when she’d arrived, and wished it was possible for inanimate objects to hear or feel or to project a message in some sort of way. Maybe they were in touch with him on a level she didn’t understand. ‘I need some guidance, Daddy,’ she said shakily. ‘Am I doing the right thing in staying here?’
The first answer that came to mind would be his, she told herself, and the answer was,
‘You should rejoin the world, my angel. You’ll love again, and you might even lose again, because we know that life will always present challenges, but you have the strength and courage to meet them. You’re your mother’s daughter, and if she can come through all that she’s suffered in her life, then so can you.’
Actually, that wouldn’t be what he’d have said, because no one, least of all her parents, ever discussed what her mother had been through. All she, Simon and Becky knew was that something awful had happened to her before she’d married their father, but they were never allowed to mention it, or to ask what it had been. So they’d been left to speculate and worry as layer upon layer of secrecy and silence continued to swathe the reasons her mother used to take to her bed, sometimes for days on end without coming downstairs at all. Yet she’d never banned them from going to lie with her, if anything she used to encourage it, saying it always made her feel better when they were near.
