by Wendy Steele
“You’re looking good.” How could anyone inject so much annoyance into such a simple phrase? What had he expected? “How’s your head?”
“Good thanks.”
Josh ran a hand through his hair, a glimpse of gold glinting in his ear. “And you can still swim.”
Lizzie shrugged. It must have been a rhetorical question because she certainly couldn’t think of an answer.
“Lizzie?”
Marsha had been dozing beneath the full force of the sun. She tried to sit up and Antonio was beside her, arranging pillows at her back. Before sitting down, he brought her water and adjusted the pillow beneath her swollen ankles.
“I’m here. I’ve had a swim with Rowan. Thank you so much for inviting us. Surprised to see you though, Josh.”
“Why?”
“I understood you were unavailable to accompany our daughter to your mother’s this year, so I took the time off work.”
Joshua stared at his mother. “You didn’t ask me! What’s going on?”
Marsha smiled, her face crinkling like a succulent prune. “I wanted you both here. Old woman’s prerogative. And my granddaughter too. Don’t look at me like that, Joshua. I don’t see why we all can’t be a family for a week or two.”
Joshua stood, his tall once lean body towering over his diminutive mother. Lizzie saw the frown lines imbedded in his forehead and the scowl marks around his mouth. “I’m not playing happy families for anyone!”
“Sit down, Joshua.”
“I’m not a child anymore! You can’t tell me what to do!”
Lizzie blushed. Why did her ex-husband continue to cause her embarrassment? “Your Mum was asking you. Why not have a peaceful holiday for your mum’s sake?”
Joshua glared at Lizzie. “Are you in on this too?”
“Of course not! Do you think I’d choose to spend my first holiday in ten years with you? Sorry, Marsha.”
Marsha shook her head. “If only you’d given this boy another chance, you could have been the making of him you know.”
Josh sat down on his lounger and leered at Lizzie. He was daring her to tell the truth. She was tempted. “You know Josh and I weren’t compatible, Marsha. Far better for both parties to go their separate ways but there’s no reason why we can’t be civil. We won’t be together here all the time. Rowan and I are going to the beach tomorrow. Josh doesn’t have to come.”
“Josh does, unless you want to drive yourself.”
Lizzie dived into the pool, the cool water setting her pulse racing. For too many years she had worn a disguise, keeping up the pretence of happy daughter and contented wife. After Josh, she was determined to be herself, fastening the straps and buckles of her armour. Clothes came first before she learned to construct a magical buffer, so how did Joshua Martin still have the power to strip her naked? She needed to take that power from him.
Rowan joined Lizzie swimming lengths of the pool.
“I heard what Dad was saying. Why did Nanny Martin cook this up?”
“She said she wants her family around her.”
“But why now?”
“As good a time as any.”
“Bryony thinks Dad’s jealous of you.”
“Why?”
“Have you looked in the mirror lately mum?”
“Why? Have I streaks of lotion on my face or something?”
“No, you’re beautiful. Don’t you get it?”
Lizzie grabbed the pool rail and pulled to the side. “What are you saying?”
“Bryony says Dad has to have his own way.”
“I know that.”
“It’s like, he believes he has the right, you know, like he’s better than everyone else. You divorced him. He can’t have you and the fact you look amazing makes it worse.”
“Rowan, at the time the divorce came through, he was on his fourth new girlfriend. He didn’t want me.”
“He may not have done at the time but Bryony thinks he does now.”
“How does…why would Bryony tell you this?”
“She loves him, Mum but she’s pretty sure he loves someone else.”
“Doesn’t have to be me.”
“Bryony says they had a rough time in New Zealand.”
“Poor them. Sorry, that was mean. Look, their relationship has nothing to do with me.”
“If Dad still loves you it does. Do you love him, Mum?”
“No! I can’t believe you’re asking me! We shared a few years together and he is your birth father and that’s as far as it goes.”
“Aw Mum, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Lizzie brushed away her tears. “It’s in the past, little flower. All the good times but all the bad and the very very bad too. That’s where I want to keep it.”
“Sure.” Rowan hugged her. “But you really should look in the mirror.”
The following morning, over breakfast, Lizzie asked Antonio about options to get to the beach.
“Take my car to the beach, Miss Lizzie. Easy to drive.”
“That’s kind of you, really but I’ve not driven for years.”
“It is beach buggy. Like your dodgem car. Foot on pedal and go.”
“Go on, Mum. Be fun.”
“Your mother doesn’t drive anymore, Rowan. Bryony’s tired but I suppose I can drive you,” said Josh.
The signpost at the crossroads was before Lizzie. She saw it clearly in her mind. This was an important moment in her life. One way, she would continue to carry the baggage of the past, all the pain and anguish, humiliation and hurt while the other, led her towards an independent life and Josh and his manipulation and selfishness would be behind her and her armour intact. Fighting down the ball of emotion gathering in her throat, Lizzie decided.
“Thanks, Antonio. I’ll give it a go.”
The mountain road was almost deserted until they neared Ojen. The car was easy to drive but staying on the right was a challenge. Lizzie’s ears buzzed but she sucked a lemon sherbet, helping her concentrate, forcing back the panic she could feel rising in her stomach. Through Cabopino, cars, bikes and pedestrians vied for precedence but they were in no rush and out the other side, the wind caught their hair as they followed the winding road to the beach. Antonio’s instructions led them to an area where they could drive onto the sand. Lizzie spun the car around so they could access their gear from the back.
“You’re enjoying this.”
Lizzie pulled on the handbrake and grinned. “It’s okay now I’ve got the hang of it.”
Sun shade erected, they knocked in a wind break for privacy and sat together on raffia mats eating peaches. The beach sparkled as light dazzled off the sea.
“This is beautiful,” said Lizzie.
“I told you it was lovely here. I wanted to live here, remember?”
Lizzie nodded. “You were so upset when I said we couldn’t. You packed your tiny suitcase and threatened to go on your own. You must have been seven or maybe eight.”
“I was eight. Last time I had a good time with Dad, that was and I’ve hardly seen him in the six years since. I’m not making excuses for him anymore. He’s an idiot.”
“I don’t think he’s stupid, Rowan, only selfish. He’s missed out on so much of your life while I’ve had the privilege to get to know you. Okay, that is pretty stupid!”
Rowan laughed. “Sam’s so good to talk to. He helped me sort my head out so well.”
“You missing him?”
“Hell yeah! What about you?”
“Me what?”
“You missing Richard?”
“No! But then again, yes. I’m so comfortable around him. And confident. He makes me feel I matter.”
“Yeah, Sam does too.”
“They’re kind men.”
“Antonio is too. He’s been with Nanny Martin for years. He says he’s her companion but you can tell he loves her to bits.”
“You didn’t ask him?”
Rowan laughed. “I did, years ago. I couldn’t work it out when
I was little because he looks younger than Dad.”
Lizzie rinsed her fingers from her water bottle before taking a long drink. She was leaning back on her elbows when the long awaited question came.
“So are you going to tell me the real reason why you don’t drive at home?”
“We can’t afford to run a car.”
“There’s more to it than that.”
“Have you been taking detectoring lessons from Richard or something?”
Rowan sighed, her long lashes fluttering. “And I thought we were getting on so much better but you still don’t trust me.”
“And you can stop that! Emotional blackmail was one of your father’s trump cards and I’ll not fall for it again! I will tell you, if I can but not all of it, Rowan. Not because I don’t trust you but the details don’t make any difference. Shall we walk to the sea?”
Lizzie tied on her straw hat with a scarf before they set off along the gleaming sand. There were a dozen or so families and couples on the beach and she could see inflatables bouncing over the waves in front of her. Once her toes hit cool sand, icy thrills travelled up her spine. Her cheeks glowed and her eyes smiled. The sky was picture postcard blue.
“There were many times I could have thrown in the towel before I did. I want you to understand that.”
“You never give up easily, Mum.”
“True well, I gave your Dad a lot of chances. I…I was never enough. He saw other women.”
“I would have kicked him out the first time he did it!”
“And maybe I should have but your father can be persuasive, you know that. He always talked me round and every time, my self-worth dropped a little lower.”
“So he cheated on you one last time?”
Lizzie nodded. “But this time…I had a friend, Paula. We met in antenatal group and hit it off straight away. She lived with her boyfriend. We were about the same age and from similar backgrounds. We were friends for three years, good friends. Late one afternoon, your Dad came home spoiling for a fight.”
“And I know why he does that. Once there’s a barny, he can flounce off and do what he wants, which is what he wanted in the first place.”
“And he always left me hurting, Rowan, confused and unloved and guilty that it had been my fault somehow. Anyway, he went out on his motorbike. I was upset. And worried. I was going to call Paula but I decided to go round there. You were bathed and in your pyjamas so I packed up our tea and drove to her house. I parked out the back, carried you through the back gate and opened the back door and…found your father there. I ran straight out, put you back in the car and drove off.”
Rowan’s arm held Lizzie back. “I’m sorry, Mum.”
Tears filled Lizzie’s eyes. “I hate sounding such a victim, Rowan. I hate telling my daughter how trampled on I was. I wanted you to think I was stronger than that.”
Rowan rested an arm across Lizzie’s shoulders. She had reached Lizzie’s height already. “But you are. You got out.”
“And ruined your relationship with your Dad.”
“Excuse me! After the way he’s behaved, he doesn’t deserve a relationship with me!”
“Maybe, and maybe one day, he’ll see how foolish he’s been but he is your Dad. I…my Dad, well when your Granddad died, I wanted him alive again so much.”
“So you’re saying I should try and have a relationship with Dad, even after what he did to you?”
“I’m saying I didn’t tell you any of this before because I didn’t want to ruin a chance you both had. What he did to me is between us. How he’s behaved towards you, is for the two of you to sort out.”
Rowan nodded. “I see that but right now, I can’t get past him being an idiot. Maybe I want to see some change in him before I think differently.”
“Or maybe you could suggest the two of you go to the beach tomorrow.”
“I could.”
The sand grew cold, their toes sinking deeper as they neared the shore. Rivulets of water linked across the beach like a drunken spider’s web.
“So what happened, after?”
“On the way home, I wrapped the car around a lamp post.”
19
Lizzie came down the following morning to find Josh and Rowan playing cards at the breakfast table. She helped herself to orange juice and muesli and walked past them to the patio with only a passing ‘Good Morning’. Bryony joined her. Her skin glistened with lotion, wrapped in a baby pink sarong. Her baby blue bikini was miniscule. Feeling like an elephant was not a pleasant sensation or one Lizzie had encountered often. Her small frame was covered and curvy and her breasts were shapely but not big. She took a deep breath and reinstated her armour. She forced herself to finish her bowl of muesli while Bryony sipped at water with lemon juice.
“I’m having a couple of fasting days. It’s good for the body. Clears all the toxins.”
“I’m sure it does but I’ll swim again later and Antonio talked about driving north so we can walk to the chapel on the cliff. I’ll need more than water to get me there!”
“We’re going into town for some shopping. Marsha said it’s the big market today. We need new clothes.”
Lizzie nodded and ate her cereal.
“But you didn’t declare it! That’s not fair!” Rowan’s voice reached them from inside.
“Look, it was in my hand there. All laid out.”
“But you didn’t declare it! You always say, you have to declare!”
“Come on. I’d let you have it.”
“No you wouldn’t! You’d say I didn’t declare! I can’t believe you’re going to take my money!”
Rowan stormed onto the patio, ripped off her sun dress to reveal another tank top bikini, this time in turquoise and gold. “He is a cheat! He can’t bear to lose, even when he’s wrong. My second hand beat him fair and square and then he declared nine cards, after he’d laid the first hand! I tried, Mum but he hasn’t changed a bit.” She ran to the pool and dived in.
Josh leaned on the door frame, chewing a piece of crispy bacon. “She’s a sore loser.”
“Sounds like she has a right to be.”
“Because I beat her?”
“Because you cheated.”
“Look, if you…”
“Please don’t. I’m not getting involved. It’s between you and Rowan now.”
Josh pulled back a chair and sat beside her. Bryony smiled across the table at him. He ignored her. “You are involved. She’s our child.”
Lizzie looked into the dark brown eyes that once made her knees turn to gravy and her stomach flip like a butterfly on a trampoline.
“And this parent has brought her child up well and worked hard for the life they have together.”
“Yeah, well you denied me that.”
“I denied you the privilege of living with me and your daughter under the same roof.”
“Yeah but you…”
“No, Josh! It’s not about me! You’ve had ten years to build a relationship with Rowan and you haven’t. It’s nobody’s fault but yours!”
“Some of us have a career and people depending on us!”
“And you couldn’t put your own daughter before other people?” Lizzie stood up and unpeeled her sarong. A desire to punch Josh in the face, to stop him looking at her as if he still owned her, welled from her toes, rose through her torso and glistened on her cheeks. She clenched her fist. Then released it. “You’re an idiot.”
Lizzie jumped into the water and swam across the pool to her daughter.
Lizzie knocked softly on the door. Antonio answered her and beckoned her in. Marsha sat in a recliner chair with her swollen ankles raised. The whirring ceiling fans wafted the scent of camomile around the room.
“Come in, Lizzie. Sit here. Antonio will bring us tea.”
“Yes, Mrs Martin.”
He nodded to Lizzie as he left the room. Worried eyes and a shake of his head made her nervous.
“It’s another scorcher, Marsha.”
“Always summer in paradise,” laughed Marsha. “This place has kept me going for years, you know. Sun, sea, sand and…sangria!”
Lizzie smiled. “While you spend all your time planning ways to get your family together?”
“You, Joshua and Rowan are all I have.”
“And Antonio and Maria and all your cronies at the galas and fundraisers and all the masonic wives.”
“But only you are my family and I’m dying.”
“Of course you’re not!”
“Antonio has promised to nurse me here. I want to die at home, not among strangers.”
“Marsha, what are you talking about?”
Antonio came in with the tray. Lizzie noticed the cut glass tumbler and smelled the brandy. She picked up the glass.
“You’ve been holding out on me, Marsha. You’d better tell me everything.”
Antonio drove up into the hills, towards the giant orange sun. With his battered straw hat rammed on his head and huge sunglasses covering his face, Lizzie had no hint about how he was feeling. He’d held her hand and Marsha’s as the older woman sobbed out her story. Two years of denial followed by one of intrusive tests and treatments had focussed her mind on one thing; family.
A sharp bend to the left, followed by a steep climb to the right, sent the buggy bumping up a narrow track which stopped before scrubby bushes and the remains of a stone wall. Borrowed boots afforded Lizzie the purchase she needed to follow Antonio, his hand reaching behind to pull her up after him as they pushed through grass sizzling with crickets and reached rough-hewn steps leading down to the hut. They took off their hats and boots, leaving them by the door and entered the tiny sanctuary.
The weight of history enveloped Lizzie. Her toes curled on the icy stone floor. No bigger than a shepherd’s hut, the wooden roof reached to heaven. Tiny windows channelled shafts of light onto the stone altar and the single wooden bowl upon it. Rather than time standing still, it whirled around her. A heartbeat ricocheted around the walls, the footsteps of a thousand pilgrims, seeking answers and peace, across the centuries. Kneeling beside Antonio, a sweet smell reminiscent of honeysuckle tickled her nose. He clasped his hands, knuckles protruding as he rammed them to his chest. His mouth moved in snatched whispers below his closed eyes. Silent tears coursed down his handsome face.
