by Judy Astley
‘No, definitely not that.’ She felt, and knew she sounded, flat and miserable, but she was completely incapable of shattering his mood.
‘So – when would be good for you? Thursday?’
‘Ah – no, sorry, Thursday I can’t do. Going on a day trip to Paris.’
‘Oh. With friends?’
‘One friend plus two we haven’t met. Like a sort of …’
‘Blind date. Right.’ He sounded a bit deflated and she felt bad. This really wasn’t how to go about things.
‘Not a real date, more just a … I don’t know, a keeping Lisa company thing. Sort of.’ She was waffling now and more than slightly hating herself.
‘Not that there’s any reason why you shouldn’t go out with anyone you like,’ he said. ‘Free agent, free spirit, all that.’
‘And you as well? Free, I mean. Are you really?’ One last chance, she thought, bracing herself to hear him fess up.
‘Completely,’ he replied. He suddenly sounded serious. ‘Er … what exactly are we talking about here? I was hoping to see you again, is all, and I did think we had a good time together the other night, didn’t we? Was it just me? I didn’t think it was just me at the time. But if you’re already seeing someone else …’
‘Me? No. No, it’s not that.’
‘Or did my rogue cucumber poison you? Look, if you want to tell me to sod off, just say.’
So she took a deep breath and was about to do some kind of version of ‘just say’, when he suddenly added; ‘Sorry, Viola, there’s a client just come in, urgent work stuff. Talk later?’ And before she could reply, he’d gone.
Each of these mornings since she’d been back at Bell Cottage, she’d slightly dreaded the day’s first glance out of the front window in case there was some love token to Rhys pinned to the magnolia again, or some badly handwritten poem shoved through the letter box. So how long would it take, Viola wondered later when the doorbell rang, for her stomach not to turn over apprehensively every time there was someone at the door?
Half of her hoped, in spite of everything, and in spite of there only having been a fifteen-minute gap since his call, that it would actually be Greg, who’d rushed over to see her on the spontaneous off chance. The other half dreaded a worst-case nut job manically attacking her with a knife. Thank goodness for the spyhole that Marco had insisted she have put in. There, swimmily distorted by the wide-angle lens, stood Naomi, arms folded across her front like the late Les Dawson hitching up his comedy bosoms, one hand clutching a bunch of deep purple gladioli. Viola took the security chain off and opened the door, standing well back to allow her whirlwind-mood mother and her floral burden in.
‘I’ve had Kate on the phone this morning and she says now you’ve come back here and look like you’re settling, she’s decided she’s moving into my flat. Was that your idea? Because I don’t want her to.’ Naomi, as usual, came straight to the point. ‘I know you all think I need someone living in to keep an eye on me in case I fall down the stairs and end up lying there for days in a helpless heap, but I don’t want Kate there. She won’t keep to her own side like you and Rachel did. Oh no. She’ll wander and fuss and she’ll poke around the place, interfering, going through stuff. I told her, I said, why should she be the one to leave her house? She had said it was Rob that was going. Have you got the kettle on? No sugar for me – Monica says we’ve to watch for diabetes. I don’t think a biscuit would hurt, though.’
Naomi settled herself at the kitchen table, laid the massive heap of gladioli down in front of her and drew breath for a moment, while Viola tried to take in what she’d said.
‘Are you sure it’s such a bad idea?’ Viola ventured. ‘Kate and Miles are worried about you being on your own, and if Kate’s happy to …’
‘Don’t be daft! She says it’d only be till she finds somewhere else, but once she’s in I know I’d never get her out. Before you blink, she’d have the builders in and be trying to turn it all into flats, telling me, “It’ll pay for itself.” I don’t think so. Vee, I can’t and won’t sell it and that’s that. I like it the way it is. You’ll have to tell her.’
‘Kate doesn’t listen to me. She thinks I’m not even capable enough to run my own life, let alone tell her what to do.’
‘She knows you’re capable all right, but she’s jealous of you, that’s her trouble.’
‘Jealous? Wow, that’s a new one! What have I got that she could be jealous of?’
‘She’d think of something. She just always has been, right from when you were little. Even as a great big girl of fifteen, she eyed up your My Little Pony castle and sulked because she thought she’d never had anything as big as that. She had, as it happens, but she’d forgotten and there was no persuading her. A lot of her old toys went during the move.’
Viola put mugs of tea and a plate of Jaffa cakes on the table and sat down opposite Naomi.
‘So you know about her and Rob splitting up?’ she said.
Naomi considered. ‘Well, only what I gathered from last night – talk about an atmosphere with those two – and what she said on the phone this morning about him going off with a golf woman. She hadn’t said anything before. But I knew Kate wasn’t settled, hasn’t been for a couple of years now.’
‘She hinted about that – that there’d been some kind of break-up before. So Rob hasn’t been quite the safely neutered Labrador I’d always taken him for.’
‘Not many of them are, love. But then scratch most folks and you’ll find it’s a case of still waters.’
Viola frowned, trying to make something of her mother’s muddled metaphor. ‘Hmm. Do you mean everyone’s got their secrets?’ Hadn’t they just, she thought, yet again picking at the wound by bringing to life the little tableau of Greg, Mickey and the baby. If it had been anyone else she’d have felt quite sentimental in that car park, thinking, ahh, such a tender scene. She rubbed her head, quite literally trying to dislodge him from her mind.
‘Oh, most people have secrets. Even you’ve got one or two, haven’t you?’ Naomi looked at Viola intently.
Viola sighed. ‘No. I don’t think so. Nothing worth keeping secret, anyway.’ Then she smiled at her mother. ‘And what about you? How many have you got?’
To her surprise, Naomi looked wary, as if she were thinking hard. ‘One or two. Everyone of my age has. And if they haven’t, they haven’t lived. Anyway – I must go. Got a cemetery visit to make, lay a few flowers.’
Well, that explained the gladioli. They’d never been something she’d thought she liked, but the purple colour of these was so deep, it was almost black. The petals had a lustrous sheen, like the gleaming pelt of a well-fed animal. ‘Anyone I know?’
‘Oliver Stonebridge. Your old Uncle Olly. It’s the twenty-fifth anniversary today.’
‘Oh, right – yes, of course. Paint in my hair …’ She smiled, thinking of how she’d told Greg about this.
‘He was always a good friend. The best.’ Naomi stood up and looked past Viola, through the open French doors. ‘Hell’s bells, the state of that garden. You’ll have your work cut out there.’ It sounded, to Viola, like something fairly random to say as a distraction.
‘I’ve made a start, weeded up the first half of the left bed. But, look, would you like me to come to the cemetery with you?’ she asked.
Naomi was fiddling with her handbag now, looking for car keys. ‘No, love, not today. Maybe another time. You’ve had enough of dealing with the dead.’
‘Don’t forget your flowers, Mum,’ Viola said, gathering up the exuberant gladioli as Naomi was now halfway to the door, leaving them on the table.
‘Oh, those aren’t mine. I’ve got roses from the garden for Oliver out in the car. No, I found these leaning against your door. No note that I could see, so it can’t be a welcome back from the neighbours. I reckon you’ve got a secret admirer. It’ll be that man you don’t talk about. The one who isn’t your cousin. Don’t listen to Kate, she wants to leave well alone, that one.’
> Viola felt cold inside. No card, no note. The Rhys factor again, it had to be. Just when she was beginning to feel safe. The possibility, no, probability, hit her like the sudden realization that you’re about to be felled by serious flu. Was this gesture, along with the cards, from the woman who’d been with Rhys when he crashed the car? For the first time since she’d made the decision to move back home, she really wondered if she’d done the right thing. As soon as Naomi’s Fiat had gone from the driveway, she crammed the gladioli, lovely as they were, into a bin bag and took them straight outside. If whoever had brought them happened to be passing before the rubbish collection the next morning, they’d see those lustrous purple flowers sticking out of the top of the bag and be sure to get the message.
It was only a few times a year that she’d visit Oliver’s grave. Although it felt fine to chat to him now and then, Naomi wasn’t under any illusions that she was talking to a spirit that could hear her. She didn’t really believe in the fetishization of the dead, and usually kept out of the cemetery unless she had a friend to bury and had to stand around a freezing graveside wishing she’d worn her furry boots. And in this huge municipal death stadium she didn’t like the rows of graves, all lined up too close together so you couldn’t help thinking you were treading on actual people. Feeling the lumpy ground beneath her feet always made her want to apologize to the occupant.
Oliver would hate it here. He’d wanted, he’d once told her when he first got ill and the end stage still seemed an unfathomable distance away, to be cremated and scattered over the Vale of the White Horse, but he couldn’t have told his wife (or if he had, she didn’t take any notice), because once Monica knew it was going to be terminal she’d started shopping for fancy granite as if she were looking for a new kitchen worktop. Naomi knew the sparkly black stuff and the gold lettering wasn’t at all what he’d have picked for himself. If he had to have a headstone, he’d certainly have preferred a lump of unpolished Dartmoor granite with some simple words incised: Oliver Stonebridge Smith, artist, and the relevant dates. He never liked a fuss.
Someone had got there first. Monica, certainly. Last year had been awkward, as Monica’s own car had been out of action and she’d asked Naomi to drive her. Which of course she had. She could have wriggled out of it somehow, but a promise is a promise and Oliver had trusted her to keep an eye. But she hadn’t felt able to share the grave-time: some things just couldn’t be done. She had made some excuse about awkward parking arrangements and stayed with the car, half listening to Radio Four’s afternoon play, while Monica arranged her carnations in the flower holder on the grey granite chippings. Naomi had gone back alone later, after the two of them had had tea and scones in John Lewis and Monica had returned to her flat happy enough with a new petit-point kit. Naomi had sat on the cold granite for so long that early evening, just talking about the summer and how much she still missed and loved him, that she became chilled and stiff and she’d had to haul herself up on the arm of the next grave’s stone angel. Oliver would have quite liked an angel, she thought now, as she walked along the cemetery path with her white roses. A magnificent, muscular angel with vast wings and a beautiful, sad-boy face.
Naomi stopped at the graveside, nodded a polite hello to the next-door angel and sat down with her roses. She never put them in a vase, didn’t arrange them among Monica’s carnations. Instead she scattered them loosely across the granite chippings. They wouldn’t last long, but that was the way with so much that was perfect. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the memory and the love that had outlived Oliver.
TWENTY-FOUR
THE DAY WAS going to be a hot one, and it would be roasting in Paris. At an hour that had even seasoned commuters yawning in their tube seats, Lisa and Viola headed for St Pancras to meet their dates. Viola felt quite excited – if a bit nervous – about the day. It would be so good to get away and think of nothing but enjoying herself, taking in the sights of the city and giving what she was supposed to be doing – working on the War Poets selection for the new term’s A-level intake – a complete miss. Also, she wouldn’t be there when the bin men took the gladioli away. She’d almost shuddered as she passed them that morning when she left, seeing their beautiful, soft purple blooms sticking out of the bag on the pavement.
Greg hadn’t texted or called her again, and she felt bad about putting off the moment when she had to have the this-can’t-happen conversation with him. At least for this one, carefree day she had a good excuse not to think about what to say, how to say it, why it had to be done. Not that she should have to say much, not once she’d made it clear she knew about the baby.
‘I should have gone for flats like you have,’ Lisa said on the tube, looking at Viola’s shoes. ‘These aren’t that high, but if we do a lot of walking I’m going to regret every millimetre of heel by the time the day’s half over.’
‘It’s Paris – you could buy some others?’ Viola suggested, feeling quite joyfully frivolous.
‘In August?’
‘What’s wrong with August?’
‘Paris is pretty much closed in August, or so I heard.’
‘Not shops? You’re kidding me.’
‘Dunno. Something I read. Everyone Parisian goes away till autumn.’
‘Oh, they can’t, not all of them. I don’t believe it. The place will be packed with trippers. So if it’s shut, why are we going then?’ Viola began to wonder if this was a good idea. Lisa couldn’t be serious. Nobody closed down an entire city just because the residents liked a holiday.
‘Toby said it’s the cheap season. He sounded as if that was a top plus.’ Lisa wrinkled her nose and grinned. ‘Doesn’t sound promising, does it? I was hoping for a Eurostar champagne breakfast. I’m thinking we’ll buy our own.’
‘So Toby is … yours? What’s mine called?’
‘Oh he’s Ed, a mate of Toby’s – I think he said they work together, something to do with marketing. I wish I knew more about him than that. Sorry, Vee. I don’t know anything about Toby either, though I’ve seen a photo and read his version of what he’s like, but you can usually take that as a piece of fiction. I think on the DateMate site the only thing we had in common was being Pisces. If yours is a total dog you can …’
‘What? Back out?’ Viola interrupted. ‘No, I wouldn’t do that to you. I mean, what would you do with the two of them?’
‘Um …’ Lisa smirked. ‘Well, it’d be a first. And now that the divorce is final I did promise myself I’d try pretty much anything, tee hee. I’m a new woman, me.’
Ed and Toby were there to meet Lisa and Viola as arranged at the top of the tube escalator at St Pancras, and Viola immediately wondered why they were dressed as if they were heading for the seaside, each of them wearing baggy cut-off combats, polo shirts and trainers. Ed’s shins were so white they reminded her of the stems of leeks. Viola could just imagine Naomi’s face, all pursed up, cat’s-bum style, in disapproval of the overcasual take on what to wear to one of the world’s most elegant capitals. Viola and Lisa were both in dresses, Lisa’s a caramel and white shift, Viola’s a blue flowered Jigsaw tea dress, both of which would be more than up to lunch in the swishest of Paris’s restaurant selection. The men were a few years younger than Viola, late twenties like Lisa, she’d guess – maybe that would do to excuse the sartorial lapse. Ed’s right forearm had a tattoo of a running tiger that looked as if it had been drawn by someone who was only at the apprentice stage of the craft. The inside of his other wrist had a heart with an unreadable name in it. Could be worse, she decided charitably, it could have been a swastika.
‘Hello, laydeez!’ Toby greeted them, arms up as if to hug them both at once and waving a clanking Tesco bag. ‘Are we in for a top day out!’
You couldn’t, Viola reasoned, not be excited about getting on a train in one country to go to another. As their party boarded and found their seats she felt quite zingy about the day, in spite of the not-so-lovely appearance of Ed and Toby and the fact that they were in the
cheapest seats. That didn’t matter at all – it wasn’t as if it was a long trip. The main thing, she told herself, was simply to get there and then enjoy the city and forget about family, stalkers, Greg (ouch) and everything. Also she must – she decided – try to get past her first impressions of Ed and Toby: there was a lot more to people than their dress sense – she mustn’t be snobby about it, even if Ed’s shirt did have a Tottenham Hotspur badge where classier versions might have a little polo player or a crocodile.
‘So much for champagne,’ Lisa murmured to Viola as Toby unloaded cans of lager from the Tesco bag and spread them out across the table. ‘They don’t serve it in Standard class.’
‘Here’s breakfast!’ Toby said, pulling packs of Scotch eggs out of the bag. ‘Sorry, girls, these are as close as I could get to a proper fry-up. Neat thinking, huh? That’s what you get in marketing. It’s all about solutions.’ An elderly couple across the aisle were dealing with a flask of coffee and steaming croissants from the station coffee shop and gave them a disapproving look. Viola sympathized.
By lunchtime, Viola had concluded that you could see a lot of Paris from the open top of a bus but you didn’t get to see inside any of the museums, or the galleries; nor did you get to sit in the Jardin du Luxembourg with fancy ice cream, or stroll along the Left Bank thinking about the poetry of Baudelaire and the theatre life of Colette.
‘The best bargain, this, don’t you agree, laydeez?’ Ed said. ‘All of Paris spread out below us, and chauffeur-driven too.’ Toby and Ed sprawled across the seats, faces up to the hot sun and turning redder by the minute. By the Eiffel Tower the two of them had downed the last of the lager, and by the time the bus stopped at the Louvre they’d taken their shirts off and their pale chests were getting as blotchy as their faces.
‘Let’s go and sit down the front,’ Viola whispered to Lisa as a party of Americans got up and left the bus. She and Lisa went and sat in front of a group of German trippers, telling the men they thought the view would be better and that not to bother to move, they were OK.
