Coming of Age

by Valerie Mendes

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about you and the Villa Galanti. And about your book in the chapel. I now know that my mother wanted you to publish it.

  I’d like to come back to Fiesole. I want to see you again. To read the book. To persuade you to publish it.

  Amy Grant

  Her heart thumping with impatience, Amy wheeled her bicycle out of the garage.

  The road stretched shiny with rain, thick with wet leaves; the sky black, without moon or stars. She flicked on the bike’s front and back lights and cycled to the post box. The letter thudded irrevocably into its mouth.

  One down . . . Two more to go . . .

  She changed direction and set off for Grayshott village. For the small, friendly police house, where she hoped their police officer, Philip Bradley, would be waiting.

  She rings the bell.

  A light flicks on in the hall. The door opens. Philip peers out.

  “Hello! Isn’t it Amy Grant?”

  “It is.”

  “Good evening! This is a nice surprise!”

  “Is it?”

  “I don’t often get calls from you this time of night. Come to think of it, I don’t get calls from you at all!”

  “No.” Amy swallows. “Things have changed . . . There’s something you need to know . . .”

  Get on with it!

  “I’ve something to tell you.”

  “Would you like to come in?”

  “No.” Amy takes a deep breath. “This won’t take long.”

  Philip settles into his listening position: head on one side, eyes wide, arms folded across his policeman’s shirt, fingers thrumming.

  “It’s about my father . . . It’s him I’ve come about.”

  “Dr Grant?” Philip’s eyes light up. “Such a lovely man! When my sister was dying, Dr Grant sat with her all night long. Aren’t many doctors you can say that about.”

  “You don’t understand,” Amy says wildly. “My father isn’t what he seems.”

  “How d’you mean?”

  “My father,” Amy says slowly. “The accident. When my mother died.”

  “Ah, yes. That was unfortunate.”

  “He kkk . . .” The verb sticks in her throat. She tries again. “He’s a mmm –”

  The telephone peals in Philip’s office. “Would you excuse me a minute? I’ll be right back.” He trots off.

  Amy kicks the doorstep. She hops up and down. She flicks at her hair and hugs her body. The night air smells thick with early autumn.

  Philip pops his head round the office door. “Got an emergency on my hands . . . Would you like to come back in the morning?”

  “But my father’s getting married in the morning.”

  “I see.” Philip grins. “That’s what you’ve come about.”

  Amy grabs her bike and wobbles furiously down the road.

  The lights are on in Hannah’s flat. She leaves the bike sprawled across the pavement, thunders on Hannah’s door.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s Amy . . . Let me in!”

  Hannah opens the door. Her hair is smeared with conditioner, her face covered in mud pack. “Amy? This is not a good time to call!”

  Amy pushes past her. “Good time, bad time, what the hell does it matter?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’ve remembered everything.” Amy clenches her fists, screws up her eyes, bites her lip. “Every single bloody little moment.”

  A silence hangs between them.

  Hannah sighs. “Ahhh . . . I see what this is about.” She draws her robe more tightly around her. “You’d better come in and sit down.”

  Amy flings herself into a chair. She looks up at Hannah. “It was my father on the Common that morning. It was him.”

  Hannah slides gracefully on to the sofa. “I know.”

  “What?”

  “He told me everything. When we were in Wales. When he asked me to marry him. I know the whole story.”

  Amy scrambles to her feet. “I don’t believe it. You mean, you knew but I didn’t?”

  “He was only trying to protect you. You’d been traumatised. What good would it have done to go over all that old ground?”

  “What good!”

  “Look, Amy. It was an accident. It’s over and done with. There’s nothing anyone can do about it, not now, not ever.”

  Amy wobbles across the room. She stands by Hannah’s slim body, seeing the outline of her bare breasts under the robe, her mud-packed face, her gleamy shining hair.

  “I hate you,” she says.

  Hannah flinches.

  “I won’t be at your wedding tomorrow. I don’t want to see you again. You can have my father. I hope you both rot in hell.”

  She marches out of the room and down the hall.

  Hannah calls, “Wait! Amy, please, don’t leave like this.”

  Amy slams the door behind her and races for her bike.

  She throws it back in the garage. It hits the trampoline, shudders to a halt.

  Inside the house, Tyler barks.

  Dad says, “Ahh, Amy . . . You did go out.”

  Julian flings an arm round Dad’s shoulders. “I’m taking Dad for a quiet drink . . . An orange juice. He’s already got through several bottles of wine.” He looks pointedly at Amy. “This is supposed to be his stag night, after all.”

  “Thass’s sright. S’my thstag night . . . Here’s to all thstags.”

  Amy looks at Chris. “That’s fine by me.”

  Dad holds on to Julian. “You can keep Chrisss entertained fra while, can’t you, my darlin’ liddle gurl?”

  “Oh, yes.” Amy slips off her coat. “I can do that all right.”

  The door slams.

  Julian’s car drives away.

  Tyler curls into his basket and snuffles into sleep.

  Chris leaps across the hall.

  He takes Amy in his arms.

  Amy clings to him, to his gentle, comforting warmth.

  Tears begin to rack her body.

  They catch in her throat and sting her eyes.

  They taste dark as the starless night.

  Nineteen

  They were still talking on the sofa, an hour later, when Julian’s car pulled up.

  They listened as he helped Dad up the stairs.

  “Juss wanna thay goo’night to mah darlin’ liddle gurl,” Dad growled.

  “No, you don’t.” Julian’s voice was firm. “You let her sleep.”

  Doors banged, taps ran, the cistern grumbled and died.

  Amy whispered, “I should go up to bed.”

  “Not yet.” Chris stroked her hair from her forehead, took her once again in his arms. “Not quite yet, my darling little girl.”

  She sleeps.

  Not an ordinary sleep, but one free at last from the nightmares of her mind.

  When she wakes it is dawn. She pulls on a tracksuit, slips down the stairs and out into the cool grey air.

  As she cycles down the lanes, fog sucks in spirals from the grass. She hears the creak of her pedals, the insistent purring of wood doves, her own panting, impatient breath.

  She rounds the corner to the farm. Golden calves sleep in the field, their tails twitching. She can smell the horses, sees them standing, watching her, in the fields beyond.

  She leaps over the metal gate into the stable yard, hears herself call, “Cadence? Cadence, I’m back. I am here for you.”

  As she runs, she remembers: her mother’s laugh, Mary’s welcome, the dappled coat and silver mane of her first and only.

  On the way back to Terra Firma, Amy stopped at Ruth’s.

  She hung on the doorbell, woke everybody up, talked to Ruth for a few moments alone in her room.

  Then she cycled home.

  At eight o’clock she opened her wardrobe.

  She took out the dress and the jacket; the shoes and the bag. She lay in a deep bath and washed her hair. She ran down to the kitchen in her bathrobe; fed Tyler;made tea and toast.

  Her fa
ther called, “Good morning,” but she did not answer him.

  She ran back to her room. She dried her hair, put on lipstick, slid swiftly into her underwear and then the dress; the shoes and then the jacket. She filled her bag. She looked at herself in the mirror.

  Yes, she would do.

  She sat at her desk and wrote:

  Dad, I can’t come to the Register Office. I don’t want to see you marry Hannah. I’m sure you’ll understand why. Chris and Jules are still asleep. Please tell them for me.

  I’ll wait for you in the churchyard. I have things to say to you, things we must discuss, before the blessing. If you don’t agree to what I want to do, I shall not attend the blessing and I shall never see you again.

  Amy

  She pushed the note under her father’s door and walked out of the house.

  Amy shivers.

  The dress is short and the jacket barely touches her waist. Her hands are freezing and the wedding party are late. She paces around the churchyard. The shoes have high heels and she cannot move all that fast. The odd passer-by stares at her and wanders on.

  The cars start to arrive. Her father gets out of the first.

  He is wearing a pale-grey suit and an embroidered blue waistcoat. He has slicked his hair back from his forehead but Amy knows it isn’t going to stay like that. Not for long.

  She sits on the bench and waits.

  “You look beautiful,” he says.

  “Thanks.”

  He holds out his hand. “Hannah and I are married.”

  She looks at the wedding ring, biting into his flesh. “So I see.”

  “Thank you for letting me –”

  “Sit down. There are things I need to say.”

  “Of course . . . Anything.”

  Amy swallows. “I know it was an accident.”

  He drops his head into his hands. “Thank God.”

  “But the fact you never told me the truth – and that you left Mum lying there – I think that was despicable. I can never feel the same way about you. But you’re my father and I want you to get on with your life. As best you can.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I shan’t tell Jules and I shan’t tell Chris. I shan’t tell anyone.” Amy smiles wryly. “It’ll be our little secret.” She clenches her fists. “But in return you must agree to what I want to do.”

  “Anything.”

  Amy stands up. “I’ve written to Marcello.”

  “What?”

  “I posted the letter last night.”

  “So that’s where you –”

  “Yes.” Amy stares at the gravestones, at the way they heave from the ground. “I’ve told him I want to go back to the Villa Galanti. To read the book. His and Mum’s book. I want him to publish it . . . It’s what Mum wanted . . . I think we should honour that request.”

  Her father is crying now; his body racks with sobs.

  “If you want me to be your maid of honour you will have to say yes.”

  “Yes,” her father moans. “Yes, of course . . . What else can I say?”

  “Good.” She opens her bag and gives him her handkerchief. “Here. Wipe your face and pull yourself together.”

  He blows his nose. It sounds like a trumpet singing over the graves of the dead.

  “This morning, very early, I did something else.” Amy bites her lip. “I went to find Cadence . . . She’s just the same as ever. Just as beautiful. I rode her down the lanes. It was wonderful.”

  Her father’s face glitters through his tears. “Can we –”

  “Yes. I want us to open the stables. I want to ride again.”

  Dad stumbles to his feet.

  “No, don’t touch me.” She turns away from him. “I’ve got something else I need to do . . . Go and find your wife.”

  Amy walks, slowly, into the centre of the yard of graves.

  Crunch, punch snap the stones beneath her heels. An autumn wasp zooms viciously against her cheek.

  Her mother’s gravestone winks up at her from waves of grass that nobody has cut. The granite shimmers in the light, grey flecked with black. Amy bends towards it. The sleeves of her jacket rustle against her arms.

  She strokes her fingers over the edge of the stone. Its roughness bites. She gasps. The granite has drawn blood. She opens her mouth and coughs. Fluid rises from her lungs. She swallows it down again.

  “I’ve come to say ‘hello’,” Amy says.

  She recites the words to herself, as if she is learning how to read:

  In memory of Lauren Grant

  Wife to William

  Mother to Amy and Julian

  Sister to Charlotte

  We who live on will always love you

  “I’m going back to Fiesole.”

  Amy fights back the tears but loses the battle. She straightens her back.

  “And then I’ll come to talk to you again.”

  In the church there are flowers and music, crowds of heads and hats, the scent of lavender.

  Dad and Hannah try to smile at her. They turn and start to walk down the aisle.

  Amy hesitates.

  She stares at the flagged floor.

  She longs to back away, to race out of the church, out of the village, on and on, into the wind and the sun, until she reaches nowhere.

  She raises her head.

  In front of her, holding her garden in her arms, glimmers the stained-glass image of Saint Elizabeth.

  Amy hears Mum’s voice: “What I love about her is her strength . . .”

  She bows her head, willing herself to move.

  Slowly, stiffly, with all eyes upon her, she walks down the aisle.

  She moves towards Christopher’s side and slips her hand in his.

  Read an Extract of Lost and Found . . .

  Daniel is completely alone in Oxford after the death of his beloved grandmother. But one morning in Woodstock he meets Laura, who quickly becomes a surrogate gran. And over the road, he discovers two newcomers: bright, beautiful Jade, with the voice of a nightingale, whom he calls his “rainbow girl”, and the little boy he assumes is her brother, Finn.

  Could they offer him a new beginning and become his family?

  But nothing is ever as it seems. It is Laura who guesses the truth of Jade and Finn’s relationship – a truth Daniel at first finds impossible to believe. When Jade finally takes him into her confidence, Daniel, compassionate and understanding, feels more protective towards her than ever.

  But someone is after Finn: a figure from Jade’s past she hoped she would never see again. A man who corners Daniel in Oxford, asking for his support. A man who manages to kidnap Finn from under Daniel’s nose while Jade is in London. A man Daniel eventually manages to track down to a narrow-boat on the Oxford canal. A man who holds the key to a secret that could threaten Finn’s future – and wreck Jade and Daniel’s chance of new-found love.

  Can they find the courage to confront him? Do they have the strength to acknowledge and deal with the truth, and to continue their lives together in Oxford as a family?

  Prelude

  Daniel stood by the side of the hospital bed.

  He looked down at her.

  At the frail, wizened hand trying to hold the spoon.

  At the mouth trying to pull the grey mince on to its tongue.

  Into dark-ringed eyes which said: “I am sorry. I can no longer eat.”

  He reached towards her.

  He took the spoon from her hand, inch by inch, and put it on the tray.

  Metal clinked against metal.

  A gust of wind punched through the curtains.

  Daniel took a breath of it.

  Then he said, “Goodbye, Gran,” and turned away.

  The words filled his mouth and tasted of mince.

  Daniel

  He jumped off the bus from Oxford and swung briskly down Woodstock’s High Street, winding through the Saturday shoppers, looking neither to left nor right.

  I’m on a ridiculous mission. I shan’
t find anyone suitable. And even if I do barge up to some little old lady, she’ll accuse me of harassment and tell me to get lost.

  At the gates of Blenheim Palace he bought a ticket and moved through the arch to the breathtaking stretch of lake and trees and sky.

  I’ll make straight for the shops in that courtyard next to the palace. I might find a tourist there. Someone I can spend half an hour with and never see again. Get this stupid assignment over and done with.

  He reached the courtyard. It was empty apart from a heavy mottled basset hound who’d been tied up in a corner and sat with his head dismally slumped on the cobblestones.

  He leaned up against one of the stone walls, watching. A young couple darted out of the gift shop and strolled away arm in arm, talking in German. Not much chance there.

  He pulled a pencil from his pocket and stuck it behind his ear like they did in newspaper offices. It was extremely uncomfortable, but at least he felt more interesting. It might make me look as if I mean business.

  A dumpy elderly woman pushed through the food shop’s door. She wore a floppy cotton dress partly covered by an old pink cardigan. Three shopping bags dangled from her arms. Balancing their handles over her wrists, she untied the dog, who leaped joyfully to lick her face.

  The sound of splintering glass cut through the air.

  “Barnaby!” the woman shouted. “You stupid pooch!” She stamped her foot. “Now look what you’ve made me do!”

  Six pots of pink clover honey had crashed through the bottom of one of the raffia baskets. The dog squatted on his haunches, looking up at her adoringly. A flush of colour spread swiftly from the woman’s neck to her dampening hair.

  “Expensive stuff, that honey. Top-notch Oxfordshire … Hell’s teeth, I knew this was going to be a lousy day.”

  Every day is lousy. Every morning I wake up and there is the poison dart. Wham! it goes, into my heart. I spend all day trying to wrench it out.