POP STAR MAIMED IN CRAZED ATTACK
Singer Bobby Cross was admitted to hospital last night with serious facial burns. He was found unconscious in his dressing room by theatre staff and rushed to Guy’s Hospital, where doctors performed an emergency operation to try to save his left eye. A police spokesman said that bleach had been added to a pot of facial cream used by Mr Cross to remove his stage make-up. The attack was one of ‘unrivalled viciousness’, said the spokesman. It is suspected that it was carried out by a crazed fan. A bunch of red roses was found in his dressing room, accompanied by a sinister note.
David looked at his mother. He knew exactly what she was thinking.
‘No, Ma. Cheska may have had a few problems, but this? Never. It’s just a nasty coincidence.’
‘You think so?’
‘I know so. How’s Ava?’
‘Sleeping beautifully. She’s such a dear little thing.’
‘Well, let’s just hope we hear from her mother soon. And that she comes back for her baby. Goodnight, Ma.’
LJ was silent as he left the room. For Ava’s sake, she prayed Cheska would stay far away from her child for as long as possible.
The following day David left Marchmont at sunrise. He had meetings in London, but he planned to pop in and see Greta at Addenbrooke’s Hospital first. One way and another, he hadn’t visited her for over a month, even though he called the ward every day to check if there had been any change. There never was.
On the drive up to Cambridge he thought endlessly about Cheska. Bobby Cross’s horrific maiming had been on the radio constantly and was splashed across every newspaper. He was not in any immediate danger, apparently, but from what was being reported, his eyes and face would not fully recover from the damage inflicted.
Bobby’s talent as a musician had been limited but his sexual charisma had been undeniable. Now this had happened, cruel as it was, there was no doubt that his days as a teen idol and film star were over. David hoped that Bobby’s wife would stand by him, because the man had never needed her more than he did now.
‘What goes around, comes around,’ he muttered to himself as he parked the car in front of the hospital. Still thinking about Bobby, he mused that his mother had always brought him up to live life honourably and truthfully. He’d watched as friends and colleagues had taken short-cuts to achieve what they wanted, but now, at the age of forty-three, he knew this was the best advice he’d ever been given. He had realised recently that everything came home to roost one day.
And yet Greta, who had done little in her life to hurt anyone, had suffered so terribly.
He got out of his car, locked it and walked towards the entrance to the hospital, wondering whether Cheska could have had anything to do with what had happened to Bobby Cross. His mother, he knew, thought she had. But surely, David rationalised, her imagination was working overtime and it was merely coincidence?
As he took the lift to Ward Seven, he remembered the sweet little girl Cheska had been. And still – as far as he was concerned – was. He had never witnessed anything in her behaviour to indicate she had the kind of violent, psychotic mind that could dream up such a thing. Yes, she’d been mad with grief in the moments after her mother’s accident, but that had been natural, surely?
David pressed the bell and saw his favourite nurse, Jane, smile at him and walk towards the door.
‘Hello, Mr Marchmont. I haven’t seen you for a while,’ she said as she led him into the ward, her blonde ponytail swinging under her nurse’s cap. He knew she had a soft spot for him. She often brought him a cup of tea and biscuits when he was sitting with Greta, and her friendly banter provided relief from the thankless one-way conversation.
‘I’ve been away.’ It seemed the easiest explanation. ‘Any change?’
‘I’m afraid not, though the nurse on duty this morning did notice a slight movement of her left hand. But, as you know, that’s likely to be an automatic nerve reflex.’
‘Thanks, Jane,’ he said, as he sat down and stared at Greta – unchanged since he’d last seen her.
Jane nodded and walked away.
‘Hello, my darling, how are you?’ David took hold of Greta’s hand. ‘Sorry I’ve been away. I’ve been busy. I’ve got lots of news for you, mind you.’ He looked down at her serene features, searching for any movement, perhaps a tiny flicker of an eyelid. But there was nothing.
‘Greta, I told you last time – and it’s ridiculous that this could be true, as you don’t look old enough to have a daughter, let alone a granddaughter – Cheska has given birth to the most adorable baby girl. She’s called her Ava. I really think that, when she’s feeling stronger, she’ll come and visit you. The baby is so beautiful. She looks a lot like her mummy and, considering she’s only a few weeks old, is sleeping very well. Cheska’s taken to motherhood like a duck to water. Even my old ma was impressed.’
David rambled on, as he always did, occasionally moving his gaze to a half-dead spider plant that sat on the windowsill above Greta’s head and talking to that, just to have a break from her white, immobile features. While he talked, his brain flitted to other things he had to do.
‘You said the baby has been named Ava. Is that after Ava Gardner, the film star?’
‘No, I think it was after someone else,’ David said automatically, still staring at the plant and thinking about possible sketches for his TV show. He’d been mulling over which famous faces he’d ask to come and join him on his Christmas special and wondering if he could persuade Julie Andrews. ‘I—’
It took a few seconds for his brain to compute what had just happened. He dragged his eyes away from the plant, dreading the thought that he’d just imagined her voice, and forced himself to look down at her.
‘Oh my God!’ he whispered as he gazed for the first time in nine months into her beautiful blue eyes. ‘Greta . . . you’re—’
He uttered no further words as he promptly burst into tears.
December, 1985
Marchmont Hall, Monmouthshire
36
The sun had long since set by the time David finished talking. He pulled out his handkerchief and dried his eyes. He’d halted many times to look at Greta, who sat listening intently to every word he spoke, and asked her if she was sure she wanted him to continue. The answer had always been ‘yes’.
He’d done his best to accurately recount the events that had taken place, as far as he knew or remembered them. But, in spite of her urging him to spare her nothing, he’d drawn the line at revealing his suspicions about Cheska’s involvement in Greta’s accident. The other detail he’d deliberately omitted was his marriage proposal. He’d felt that that, also, would be too much to burden Greta with at present, bearing in mind all the other revelations.
He looked at her now, staring off into space, and wondered what she was thinking. The story would be enough to shock a stranger to whom it was told, but this was Greta’s life.
‘Are you okay, Greta?’
‘Yes. Or, at least, as okay, as I can be after what you’ve just told me. To tell you the truth, I’d remembered a lot of it, anyway. You’ve just clarified and made sense of it. What she did to Bobby—’ Greta shuddered. ‘She could have killed him.’
‘You think it was her?’
‘Almost certainly. The madness I saw in her eyes in the bar at the Savoy just before my accident when I told her Bobby was married . . . she was so disturbed, and I didn’t see it,’ she whispered. ‘I refused to see it, David. I made so many mistakes. God forgive me. I should never have pushed her like I did.’
‘Greta, you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. But right now, I’m in need of a very stiff drink. How about you?’
‘Perhaps,’ she agreed. ‘Just a small one.’
‘I’ll make you a weak gin. Back in a moment.’
David left the room and walked to the kitchen. Tor was sitting at the table, reading the Telegraph. After hours of recounting the grim story, he felt now as if he’d entered into a w
orld of calm and normality.
‘How is she?’ Tor asked.
‘I really don’t know, but after what I’ve just told her, pretty shell-shocked, I should think. Sorry I’m having to spend so much time with her,’ he said, kissing her on the top of her head. ‘I promise I’ll make it up to you in Italy. It’s only a few days away.’
Tor looked up at him and squeezed his hand. ‘It can’t be helped, and let’s hope that, now Greta’s remembered, she won’t be so reliant on you in the future.’
‘Yes, let’s hope so. Can I get you a drink?’ David asked, walking to the state-of-the-art fridge and putting a glass under the ice-maker.
‘No, thanks,’ Tor said, her head back in the newspaper.
David carried the drinks back to the drawing room and placed Greta’s glass in front of her.
‘Thank you.’ She picked it up to take a sip and David saw that her hand was shaking.
‘Anything I can do to help, Greta?’ he asked, feeling that she must take the lead.
‘David, it seems that all you’ve done for the past God knows how many years is to help me. And Cheska,’ she added. ‘I don’t know how I can ever thank you. You were there for both of us all that time when I was in hospital. I don’t know how you did it. I feel . . . so guilty, about so many things. How can I ever repay you?’
‘You just have. You know, I always refused to give up hope, so it’s very gratifying to be proved right. Anyway, it’s the last thing you should be worrying about. You’re family, Greta, and so is Cheska and at times of need, we stick together, don’t we? That’s what families do. And before you say you aren’t related by blood, either of you, it’s irrelevant.’
‘LJ must have seen me as the instigator of Marchmont’s destruction. And, in a way, her own. Although it’s made me feel better to know that Owen used me as much as I used him. All those years, and he was in love with LJ. That was something I never knew. It’s so sad, really, for both of them.’
‘Well, they were both as stubborn as each other. Sometimes it happens that way.’
Greta shivered as a flashback of a moment came into her mind full throttle. She gasped involuntarily, it was so vivid.
‘What is it?’
‘Nothing. If you’ll excuse me, David, I’m going to go upstairs and lie down for a while.’ Greta stood up abruptly and walked from the room. David wondered what on earth it was she’d remembered. And realised it could be anything.
‘Talk about a can of worms,’ he muttered to himself, draining his gin, then went to join Tor in the kitchen.
Greta sat on her bed, wishing she could walk straight back downstairs and ask David if what she’d seen in her flashback could really be true; that he’d once told her he loved her and asked her to marry him.
Greta closed her eyes again and saw them at a table . . . yes, yes! It had been in Monmouth at the Griffin Arms that he told her he loved her – she could see it in her mind’s eye. And for some reason which seemed utterly unfathomable to her now, she had refused him. Greta searched the cobwebbed recesses of her mind, desperate to remember why.
Patience, Greta, patience, she told herself, having already learned that some things jumped into her brain involuntarily whilst others she had to wait for. Because there was another memory; something that had happened after this which she knew might explain things more clearly.
She closed her eyes once more and, as if she were trying to net an elusive butterfly, attempted to relax and let her synapses reach out and try to catch it. Glimpses were there already . . . it was at the Savoy – she recognised the heavy silver cutlery and the immaculate white linen tablecloth – she and David were talking over lunch and she’d been very nervous because she had something to tell him. Then David had spoken to her and she’d been thrown off balance by it . . . What was it? Bad news, something that had shocked her . . .
Cheska and Bobby Cross.
Greta opened her eyes, knowing then the exact moment she had decided to tell David how stupid she’d been when she’d rejected his proposal all those years before. She had been about to tell him she loved him and ask him whether he still felt anything for her . . .
And then later that evening, they’d been due to meet for a drink, but Cheska had arrived before him, just as David had said. And they’d had that terrible argument. Greta now knew that she hadn’t ever been able to say the words she’d needed to say to him because she’d walked into oblivion a few minutes later . . .
So he had never known over all these years what she had been planning to tell him.
Was it too late . . . ?
Maybe not, she thought, rerunning the memory of his declaration of love and his proposal over and over in her mind and hugging it to her. With a smile of pleasure, Greta eventually dozed off.
‘Fancy some fresh air, darling?’ David asked Tor after they’d eaten lunch the following day.
‘Good idea. Greta’s sleeping, is she?’
‘Yes.’
The two of them set off, Tor sweetly asking questions about what he had told Greta. He answered most of them monosyllabically. He felt protective of Greta and what was happening to her but, equally, guilty that this Christmas had not quite been the one he’d envisaged. For him, or for Tor. For months now he’d been working his way mentally towards asking Tor to marry him, understanding that he was too old to hang on to his dreams and visions of perfect love with Greta. He and Tor were happy together in a practical sort of way. And really, he should do the decent thing and put a ring on her finger.
All these intentions drifted through his mind as he answered her questions as best he could. At the same time, he pondered on what it was that Greta had just recalled – but did it really make any difference? Even if she had now remembered her past and the part he had played in it, she had never loved him. Or, at least, not in the way he wanted her to. Besides, despite his feelings for Greta, which he knew he would never lose, Tor had given him a sense of stability; such a refreshing contrast to the madness of the time he’d just recounted to Greta.
His current relationship might not contain the same passion, but was that relevant at this point in his life, given the pain he’d experienced in the past? That period of his life, running between Greta and Cheska when they were both so sick, had caused him so much stress he’d wondered at the time if he were half mad, too.
And he knew Tor was getting restless, feeling rightly that their relationship needed to be put on a firmer and more permanent footing. He’d even brought his mother’s engagement ring with him to Marchmont – the very same one he’d had in his pocket that evening when he’d proposed to Greta. It was sitting in a drawer of their bedroom, ready for him to take out at the appropriate moment. Maybe, he thought, he should wait until they were away at his apartment in Italy for New Year. All this would be behind them then – but, at the same time, David was intuitive enough to know that Tor had been tense about Greta being here in the first place, let alone what had happened since.
‘I think there’ll be a thaw by tomorrow, judging by the heat of that sun.’ Tor looked up at him and smiled.
‘You’re probably right,’ David agreed. ‘But it’s been beautiful while it’s lasted.’
‘It certainly has.’ Tor put her arm through his then leant up and kissed his cheek. ‘We must decide what adventures we’re going to plan for next year. Where do you fancy? I was thinking that we could either go back and do the Marco Polo route through China, given we didn’t manage to get there last time, or maybe Machu Picchu. We could leave at the beginning of June and then travel through South America.’
David loved her for what she’d just said. It was the perfect antidote to the last few hours. She wasn’t dwelling on or complaining about Christmas and his lack of attention to her, but propelling him forward into the future. David sighed inwardly. The past had gone. And Tor had been so patient about the Greta situation, unlike so many other women would have been. He owed her a lot for continuing to stand by him.
‘Either sound
s wonderful – whichever you prefer. Also,’ David said, out of pure instinct, ‘I want to ask you something.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘Well, I think that if we’re going to be travelling abroad this year it would be a good idea to change the name on your passport sooner rather than later.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that I’d like you to be my wife, Tor. And excuse me if I can’t go down on bended knee, because rheumatism might set in due to the snow and you’ll never get me up again. But there it is.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘What kind of comment is that to make to a comedian?’
She smiled then, and gave an almost girlish giggle. ‘Well, are you?’
‘Tor, of course I am! I was going to wait until Italy but, just now, something came over me and I had to ask. So how about it?’
‘I . . . are you sure?’ Tor seemed surprised, almost dazed by his proposal.
‘Yes. Are you?’
‘I think so.’
‘Goodness, darling, we’ve been together for years. Why is it that you’re so shocked?’
She turned away from him for a while and he saw her taking a deep breath before turning back to him.
‘Because I thought you’d never ask.’
Greta woke up feeling refreshed and exhilarated. Even though there were many things David had told her, and she had remembered many more herself that she must somehow deal with, the fact that David had loved her once filled her heart with happiness. And if he had loved her then, surely he could love her again . . . ?
Greta ran a bath then took extra care with her hair, make-up and clothes before joining everyone downstairs in the drawing room for drinks before dinner.
The moment she entered the room she could feel a buzz of excitement. A chilled bottle of champagne sat in an ice bucket on the coffee table.
‘We were waiting for you,’ said Ava, coming towards her and drawing her into the room. ‘David has an announcement to make.’
The Angel Tree Page 31
