Echoes of Love

by Rosie Rushton

  ‘It’s complicated,’ Anna replied.

  ‘You mean because of that whole TV business? That’s his problem, not yours. Look, my mother will go mental when I tell her about Cameron but tough; it’s my life and I’ll live it how I want to. And you should do the same.’

  She’s right, thought Anna, half an hour later as she crept back to bed and tried to go to sleep. I won’t listen to Dad or anyone else. Felix and me, that’s all that matters. I’m just going to concentrate on having a good time.

  Which was easier said than done.

  On Tuesday, as she was queuing at the ice cream van after an intense game of volleyball on the beach, Anna’s mobile beeped. Seeing that it was a voicemail from Marina, and that there had been three missed calls from her that morning, she glanced over her shoulder and, noticing that Felix was busy playing Frisbee with Jamie, she listened to the messages.

  ‘You can ignore my calls all you like but I shan’t give up until you speak to me.’

  Anna’s finger hovered on the Delete button.

  ‘I never thought I would say this to you,’ her godmother’s disembodied voice continued, ‘but you are being completely selfish and disloyal to your father – and to your mother’s memory.’

  Her words felt like a kick in the stomach to Anna whose head was already pounding from the combination of too much Pimm’s, a broken night’s sleep and an hour of rushing around in the sun.

  ‘Your father wept this morning, Anna – yes, he actually wept. Because of what you’ve done. I fear for his health; he’s been on the edge for weeks, and now this, on top of everything that wretched woman set in motion . . . Words fail me.’ They clearly didn’t, because she continued without pause. ‘Just think, Anna, what your mummy would be saying right now.’

  The words were like a knife cutting through Anna’s already bruised ego.

  ‘Ring me. Soon. Unless of course you would prefer me to come over there and drag you home and, believe me, I’m tempted!’

  Anna snapped the phone shut and shuffled miserably to the head of the queue.

  ‘Six cones with a flake, please,’ she muttered, although in truth she doubted she could swallow anything.

  She was balancing the cones and edging her way down the wooden steps back to the beach when her phone beeped again.

  ‘Oh go to . . .!’ Why should she spoil the day by phoning Marina? But then, if her dad really was on the edge . . . No, that was just Marina exaggerating. But Marina didn’t exaggerate. And her mum had often talked about her father’s blustering being a cover for his insecurity.

  And what if Marina did turn up at the cottage, which of course, she wouldn’t – it was just a threat . . . But what if . . .?

  ‘Anna!’ Phoebe grabbed two cones from her hands. ‘They’re dripping everywhere. And hey, what’s up? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘It’s – oh, nothing.’

  ‘Good, because you’re going to have to sort Jamie out,’ Phoebe muttered. ‘I’m about to tell him we’re through. And after that I’m catching the five-thirty ferry back. I’m going home.’

  For the rest of that day, Anna tried desperately to blot out all thoughts of home. At first it wasn’t too hard. Jamie had disappeared soon after Phoebe left and, by ten that evening, he still wasn’t back. Felix and Zac had been down to the pub to see if he was drowning his sorrows, but there was no sign of him. He wasn’t answering his mobile and his wallet was still on his bed.

  Anna, who had left her mobile switched off since Marina’s angry phone call, switched it back on and sent a text to Phoebe.

  ‘Just in case he chased after her,’ she told the others.

  All she got back was an abrupt, He’s big enough to sort himself out which she thought was a little harsh under the circumstances.

  ‘He can’t do much without any money,’ Sula reasoned. ‘I guess he just needed some time out. I mean, if Zac did that to me, I’d want to go away, curl up somewhere and just die.’

  ‘But then, I never would,’ Zac replied softly, kissing the back of her neck. He turned to Anna. ‘You’re her friend, has she told you anything? All I got was that she couldn’t handle the holiday and she’d explain when I got home.’

  ‘And her timing,’ Felix muttered. ‘How could she dump him in the middle of a holiday?’

  Just then, Anna’s phone beeped.

  One new message.

  ‘Is it him?’ Three voices asked in unison.

  It wasn’t from Jamie. It was from Mallory.

  Dad’s in hospital. Please ring. Urgent. M

  ‘Oh my God!’ Anna sank into the nearest chair and dialled Mallory’s phone.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Felix asked.

  ‘It’s my dad, he’s . . . Mallory? Hi, it’s me. What’s happened?’

  She listened, alarmed and guilty in equal measure, as Mallory told her how, earlier that evening, her father had been ranting about the injustices of his life, and the behaviour of Anna in particular, had stormed out into the garden for a cigar, and been found in a heap in the middle of the lawn.

  ‘They think it’s his heart,’ Mallory sobbed. ‘Gaby’s in France and I can’t reach her. You have to come home. It’s all your fault this has happened.’

  ‘It’s too late to do anything tonight,’ Felix said, when Anna had rung off. ‘The last ferry will have left ages ago.’

  He gave her a hug and Anna rested her head on his chest.

  ‘Mallory thinks it’s all my fault,’ she sighed.

  ‘Mallory can think what she likes,’ Felix replied. ‘Whatever is wrong with your dad, it’s not down to you. Just get that into your head right now.’

  ‘I’ll have to go back,’ she ventured. ‘First thing in the morning.’

  ‘Of course you do, and I’ll take you. This holiday,’ he said dryly, ‘seems to have been a disaster from the start. Let’s hope Zac and Sula manage to come through it unscathed.’

  Jamie had returned at midnight, slightly the worse for drink and acting in a way that convinced all of them, if they had needed any convincing, that drama was definitely the most appropriate career for him. The following morning Anna, Felix and Jamie – who was hell bent on chasing after Phoebe who he said was ‘a flower in a field of weeds’ – left for Fleckford.

  The closer they got to home, the more anxious Anna became. Felix had been great, sorting out the ferry, doing all the driving and insisting on stopping for lunch because he said hospital visiting couldn’t be done on an empty stomach. Jamie had insisted on getting the fast train direct to London despite not having a clue where Phoebe would be hanging out, and after trying to dissuade him Felix had given in and dropped him off at Southampton station. For the remainder of the journey he had kept up a stream of chat.

  ‘I know it’s a lot to ask,’ Anna ventured, as Felix pulled up in the hospital car park, switched off the ignition and opened the car door, ‘but will you come in with me? I’m not very good in hospitals and . . .’

  ‘Of course I’ll come,’ he replied, squeezing her hand.

  Walter was in a side room and Anna could hear his voice from way down the corridor.

  ‘Good sign,’ Felix teased. ‘He hasn’t lost the power of speech.’

  Gingerly, she pushed open the door. A tall, grey-haired man in a dark suit, whom she assumed was the consultant, was standing at the foot of the bed. Walter, looking strangely vulnerable in a hospital gown, was propped up on pillows.

  ‘. . . not a heart attack at all,’ the consultant was saying. ‘You’d clearly been hitting the bottle rather too much . . .’

  ‘Are you suggesting . . .?’

  ‘. . . and that,’ the consultant continued calmly, ‘plus what was undoubtedly an angina attack caused you to pass out. And you also have very high blood pressure which . . .’

  At that moment, Walter turned and caught sight of Anna and Felix, who were hovering in the doorway.

  ‘High blood pressure, you say? Well, it’ll be a damn sight higher if you don’t get that
boy out of my room right now!’

  ‘Dad, that’s not fair – if it wasn’t for Felix, I wouldn’t have got here half as quickly . . .’

  ‘If it wasn’t for your sordid little romance with Felix, I wouldn’t have encountered that woman and I wouldn’t be in here,’ her father stormed. He turned to the doctor. ‘Stress, you said – that’s what I’m suffering from?’

  ‘It could certainly be a contributing factor, but the alcohol, your smoking . . .’

  ‘Satisfied?’ He glared at Anna.

  ‘I’ll leave you to your visitors,’ the doctor said. ‘And I’ll sign your release papers. But you need to see your GP and get this angina sorted and make some fairly major lifestyle changes.’

  ‘You heard what the doctor said? Major lifestyle changes, or my health will go downhill.’

  Three hours later, Walter was home, holding court while Araminta, who had sped up the motorway the moment she heard the news, sat on the arm of the sofa, stroking his balding head as if he were a child of two.

  ‘You must drink less,’ Marina said sternly. ‘Party less and accept that you’re not getting any younger.’

  ‘Well, if my own daughter wasn’t driving me to drink, it might be easier,’ he sighed, slipping into the role of the much misjudged, ill-treated parent. ‘I want you to keep away from that boy, Anna – at least till all this business with his mother is sorted. The lawyers are meeting next month and I can’t afford to . . .’

  His voice faltered and his eyes filled with tears.

  ‘If it all goes horribly wrong, I’ll have let your mum down and I can’t bear that.’

  That was what did it. In that moment, Anna knew she had to help her father through this, whatever it took. And he did say ‘till this business is sorted’.

  She knew what she had to do. And how she could, despite everything, make it bearable.

  ‘How’s he doing?’

  Felix had driven to their place in the woods as soon as Anna, confident that her father’s trip with Marina to the GP would take at least an hour, phoned him the following morning. He had picked her up, whirled her round and round and kissed her full on the lips.

  ‘Now your Dad’s home, how about we try to redeem our week? I don’t mean go back to the cottage, but I thought we could . . .’

  ‘We can’t do anything,’ Anna said, her voice shaking slightly. ‘For the time being, we’ve got to see less of each other.’

  For a moment, the only sound was the chirping of the birds and the rustling of leaves in the beech trees.

  ‘Say that again.’ Felix’s voice was tight with emotion.

  ‘Oh, I’m not dumping you,’ Anna assured him hastily, taking his hand. ‘Just saying that when we meet, we’ve got to do it in secret. I’ll tell my dad that I am doing things his way – not seeing you till all this mess with your mum is sorted – and then we’ll arrange how we can get together when he’s out of the way . . .’

  ‘So hang on, let me get this straight.’ Felix snatched his hand away. ‘You want us to have a secret relationship? Behind closed doors?’

  ‘Well, yes – I mean I can say I’ve got band rehearsals and parties with friends and . . .’

  ‘Anna, Anna.’ Felix cupped her face in his hands. ‘You just don’t get it, do you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I love you – and I want the whole world to know just how much you mean to me. This idea of hiding away – it’s like we’re ashamed of what we feel for one another. No way am I going to hide in a corner.’

  ‘But if we just keep Dad calm —’

  ‘It’s not up to you to keep him calm, Anna. If you do this, what will happen next? Two years down the line, you’ll make another decision he doesn’t like and then what?’

  Anna took his hand. ‘I promise, it’s just for a few weeks. Then when this court case business is all sorted . . .’

  ‘And what if the case goes against him? What then?’

  For a moment Anna was lost for words.

  ‘I love you. You know that. But I can’t and won’t lie – I can’t be two-faced. And I won’t dance to someone else’s tune.’ He touched her cheek. ‘You told me that I was the most important person in your life.’

  ‘You are, but . . .’

  ‘It doesn’t look that way to me. I can’t do this, Anna. It’s best if we face facts. It’s over between us.’

  And with that he turned and strode up the path. She ran after him, pleading, crying, telling him he’d got it all wrong, believing that any minute, he would turn back, take her in his arms and tell her that, if keeping things quiet for a bit would make her happy, then he’d do it.

  But that didn’t happen.

  As he reached his car, she grabbed his arm. He paused, and turned to face her, and she saw that his eyes were glistening with unshed tears. ‘I loved you so much, Anna,’ he whispered. ‘And I thought you felt the same.’

  Choking back the tears, she tried to reply but before she could utter a word he had got into his car and driven away.

  CHAPTER 12

  ‘It is a sort of pain, too, which is new to me. I have been used to the gratification of believing myself to earn every blessing that I enjoyed.’

  ( Jane Austen, Persuasion)

  SHE HAD SENT EMAILS. SHE HAD BOMBARDED HIM WITH text messages. She had even written long letters. She had prayed harder than she had ever prayed in her life.

  And she heard nothing from him.

  The only news she got came via Phoebe.

  ‘Zac says the best thing you can do is butt out for now,’ she told Anna. ‘Apparently, when he quizzed Felix about what happened between you two, he just said that no way was he going to let you stab him through the heart again. That’s really poetic, isn’t it? For a boy, I mean?’

  Anna had no option but to pin all her hopes on Christmas. Phoebe had told her that Zac and Felix would be home on Christmas Eve for ten days. On Shannon’s advice, she tried to change everything about her old self: she had her hair cut into a feathery bob, let it return to its natural colour, got herself a French manicure, and blew more cash than she should have on clothes.

  ‘See, the important thing,’ Shannon, who was very into psychology at the time, explained, ‘is to surprise him with the new look which tells his subconscious mind that you are now different in outlook as well as in the way you look. Clever, eh? I read it in Psychologies magazine.’

  Anna began to have high hopes, but on Christmas Eve, she went down with flu. On Boxing Day, Phoebe sent her a text.

  Zac and Felix going skiing 2moro. F spending 2nite at our place. Over 2 u!

  ‘What are you doing?’ Mallory demanded a couple of hours later as Anna, white as a sheet, staggered downstairs, wearing her coat, scarf and gloves and clutching a gift-wrapped package. ‘You’re ill. And don’t come near me – I don’t want your germs.’

  ‘I’m going out for a breath of fresh air,’ Anna replied. ‘It’ll make me feel . . .’

  What it was going to make her feel, Mallory was never to find out. Anna had fainted on the hall floor.

  ‘You wouldn’t have wanted him to see you looking like road kill,’ Shannon remarked the following day, when Anna sobbed out the story on the phone.

  ‘Tell you what – you said he’d be qualifying or passing out or whatever they call it next month, right? Get the Harvilles to take you along to the ceremony.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘And when you’re there, you tell him that from now on you won’t let your father rule your life,’ her friend concluded.

  ‘I wish it were that simple,’ Anna sighed.

  ‘Anna Eliot, life is as simple or as difficult as you choose to make it,’ Shannon declared. ‘Just do it!

  * * *

  To : feebsharville@btinternet.com

  From: saxygirl@tiscali.net

  Hi Feebs! Is Felix’s passing out ceremony open to anyone? Do you think it would be all right if I tagged along? I’d really like to see him . . .

  F
or two days she didn’t get a reply. When she did, she wished she hadn’t.

  To : saxygirl@tiscali.net

  From: feebsharville@btinternet.com

  Hi! Thanks for the email. We checked with Zac about arrangements. He said it would be best to leave it. Sorry, babe. But I’ll put in a good word for you with Felix, OK? Must dash – Cameron’s taking me to RockFest at the Bowl.

  The mention of a rock concert reminded Anna about the tickets she had given to Felix for Sugar Lumps at O2. Who, she wondered miserably, would he go with now? She didn’t have to wait long for an answer. The next day, she found an envelope on the doormat addressed to her in Felix’s looping scrawl.

  For a moment, she dared to hope.

  She ripped open the letter. The two tickets to the concert fell out at her feet.

  This would have been fun. Guess you can find someone more suitable to go along with. F

  That was when she fully realised the extent to which she had hurt him. And resigned herself to never getting him back.

  Ironically, just a few weeks later, Anna’s father was persuaded by his lawyer that continuing to hold out and make a scene was not wise. He made a substantial donation to the Alzheimer’s charity (the world didn’t have to know that it was Marina’s money, since his own finances were frozen until his creditors had been satisfied) and Cassandra, following a muted apology in the press, accepted that this matter was closed.

  None of which made Anna feel in the slightest bit better.

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER 13

  ‘How much handsomer, how infinitely more agreeable they thought him than any individual among their male acquaintance!’

  ( Jane Austen, Persuasion)

  ‘COME ON, COME ON, GET A MOVE ON!’

  Anna tapped the steering wheel in irritation as she was forced to crawl along the road into Kellynch village behind a grindingly slow tractor and trailer. It was only a few days until the Fleckford Music Festival, and she had a thousand things to do. The band wasn’t up to scratch with their pieces, she still hadn’t finished preparing for her first session with the summer school kids at the theatre the following day, and to cap it all, Marina, who was about to leave for her ten-day trip to Madeira, had given her a huge box of tombola prizes to drop off at Uppercross Farm on her way to rehearse at Mia’s place.