by Karen Aldous
Again Olivia stared, waiting for her mum to answer, anger mounting. ‘For God’s sake, you’re not denying it. You might as well tell me the truth.’
Roz raised a hand to her forehead and closed her eyes, sheltering her face. Olivia wanted to shake her, as her own body was now doing. Struggling for breath, she leaned against the chair.
‘So, don’t you feel you owe me an explanation? You dumped me with Gran. You didn’t want me but can’t I just know why … ?’ Tightening her fists she wrestled with the jumble of emotions wrangling inside her. ‘Why bring up two other children when you can’t even look after one? Why wasn’t I included, Mum? Did you hate me that much? And now? Do you still despise me?’
As soon as she saw the glint of a tear swell in her mum’s eye, Olivia couldn’t bear it. Instinctively she screamed, ‘You’re heartless; you should be ashamed of yourself. You’re cruel and selfish. You’ve no idea what kind of vacuum you’ve created in here,’ she said, her eyes spurting hate, her hand clutching at her sternum, close to her heart. ‘For Christ’s sake, speak to me.’ Olivia’s eyes were now stinging and she knew she couldn’t hold back much longer. She covered her mouth with her hand, hiding her quivering lips.
‘What was I supposed to do? I wanted you all together. I did what, I couldn’t … Oh, Olivia, Olivia, please … It wasn’t … it wasn’t supposed to happen like it did.’
Olivia swallowed, willing the emotions to subside. ‘What, you couldn’t control Gran? She wouldn’t let me go? Don’t be ridiculous. I was your child.’ Shaking, Olivia watched her mother slurp more wine.
‘Your papa left. He was supposed to find us somewhere to live. I went after him, but our savings went and we didn’t have anywhere to live. This place was just scrub and forest. We had to clear it and build it from scratch. We had just got the basics together when I found out I was pregnant again. We had to race to do what we could to bring in an income. Olivia, I was looking after two babies and trying to build this, and then your papa … was killed. You had started school in England; Gran was heartbroken. It was a stable home for you.’
‘Young and selfish. It was all about you. I know Papa was selfish. You had options. You could have gone to Nonna’s, Gran’s, kept us all together. Sold this, even. Options, Mum. You could have somehow taken any one of those and kept us all together. How could you treat one of your children so differently? Going by your letters, you seemed happy when I was a baby. That’s the impression I got.’
‘Gran, oh, we … never told Gran. Papa and I. We agreed. I know it was selfish but we’d dug ourselves a hole and we couldn’t get out of it. You were happy, settled.’
‘My God, you are mercenary. Why didn’t you tell her? They were her grandchildren.’
‘Your papa wouldn’t go back to England. He wasn’t … he hated following the rules; he couldn’t do it. He thought Gran would force him home, make him work, conform to her expectations. He thought it best for all of us.’
‘For him? And for you? You had choices after he died. You could have had your family together.’
The door opened suddenly. Olivia jumped. The woman she had seen earlier with the child entered. She’d been crying. ‘I’ve heard this mamma and I’m not impressed. You told us Papa’s parents were dead. That he didn’t have any. How could you be so cruel?’
Roz looked from one daughter to the other then slumped her head down on the worktop. The woman looked at Olivia.
‘I’m Bella. So you’re my older sister?’
‘I believe so. I’m as much in the dark as you.’ Olivia wiped her cheek. ‘This woman abandoned me in London when I was four. I’m Olivia, by the way. I had the shock of my life yesterday when I found some photos in, well, our Nonna’s cassone. I hadn’t a clue I had more family. All I knew was Mum was young and was unable to cope after she had me. I believed after Dad died, she might have had a breakdown. I don’t know. Gran raised me in London at Dad’s home but I met Mum at Nonna’s two or three times a year. Worse, Nonna has lied to us, and so have Gabriella and Nico. Poor Gran and Grandad in London knew nothing of you. Either of you.’
Olivia pulled up her sleeves and fanned her face. The room was closing in on her and the heat oppressive.
‘Yes, I heard.’
Olivia had to escape. ‘Well, now I know. Mum, I have nothing more to say to you. I’ve done your work for you. I know you wouldn’t have got in touch again. It’s my turn to abandon you. And I don’t want Nonna’s farm. You think you can pay me off, think again. You have three children. You can manage the legalities. I’ve nothing to do but return to London. Nice to meet you, Bella; sorry the circumstances couldn’t have been better.’
Chapter 17
Scrambling out of the door into torrential rain, Olivia pulled her hood over her head, and dug into her pocket for her key. Pressing the fob several times, she fumbled for the handle whilst her body shook uncontrollably in anguish as she climbed in. She’d barely put the key in the ignition, when the tears instantly blurred her vision. Wiping them away, she spun the car around and drove off, the windscreen wipers pinging back and forth as she sped down the hill.
Smearing her cheeks as the tears rolled down them, questions brewed like murky yeast bubbling in her brain. How was her mother so calm, so insensitive? She was usually such a drama queen. Surely it wasn’t that much of a shock? Olivia’s insides numbed, her tongue and mouth sour.
The blankness on her mum’s face played in her head. Did her mother not have compassion? She wasn’t even apologetic. And to say, ‘What was I supposed to do?’ As if her child could answer that. Did the woman have no grip on the nature of the situation, or understand her feelings? And, she wondered with gut-wrenching bile rushing up her oesophagus, had her father really influenced her that much? Would a mother really have shared those feelings? Had he also wished or encouraged her mother to abandon her?
Hurtling towards the exit, she braked hard. Blinded by both anger and streaming tears, she steered the car left, keeping the curve of the road and narrowly missing the oncoming car. She jumped, her heart catapulting to her throat. She was probably going the wrong way but how was that important in the scheme of things?
She continued on, through a village, tempted to stop. She needed to pee and was desperate for a drink. She drove on, letting the tears pour. She needed to unharness the emotion of the last twenty-four hours. All she could think was to get away and keep driving.
Unsure how far she had driven, she stretched her hand across to the passenger seat and rummaged for a pack of tissues from her bag. She mopped her eyes, her vision improving. The rain was easing too and she turned the wipers down. The lake to her right became an increasingly vibrant blue, like a corner of the sky, with much of the cloud curling over the mountains. On the opposite side of the lake, evidence of villages came into view along the water’s edge, the colours of the buildings deepened by the drenching rain, whilst pine trees climbed the hills behind.
Feeling shattered, she searched for a suitable place to turn around. There were few opportunities with the lake on one side and a bank on the other. Passing the odd building here and there as she drove, not far ahead she spotted another built-up area, another village or town.
In desperate need of a coffee, she aimed for somewhere to stop. Finding a few parking bays, she parked the car by the lake wall. After collecting herself she checked her face in the mirror, seeing that it was tinged with red blotches and her eyes were swollen. She walked along a promenade to a lakeside café. With just one couple seated, there were plenty of tables available. A waiter was washing the chairs with a cloth, then drying the seats with another, probably after the rain.
‘Buongiorno.’ He smiled, guiding her to one of the seats he had dried.
‘Buon pomeriggio! Potrei avere un cappuccino per favore?’ she said, ordering herself a coffee, and then saw the sign for the toilets.
After splashing her puffy face with cold water, she rubbed on a little moisturizer, wishing she
could as easily re-nourish her internal organs. Her whole body felt weary, like she imagined a vampire’s victim would be: every blood vessel sucked dry. Sighing at the gloomy sight in the mirror, she tidied her slightly damp hair and pinched her cheeks before grabbing her bag and heading for the door.
‘Mmm,’ she moaned, picturing a large cup of coffee sitting on her table waiting for her, but as she came out of the café and ambled back out to the terrace, she had to blink hard. Yes, the sun had emerged and jarred her vision but with it, among the autumn-burned beech trees, sat at her table, was Hugh. He gave a nervous smile. At first, her heart leaped as the relief of seeing a friendly face swept over her. Here was someone who cared. But then she raged.
‘What are you doing here?’ she spat with snake-like venom. ‘Did you follow me?’ She twisted her head around in search of his car.
His face twitching, Hugh got up from his chair. Scratching his cheek as though unsure he said, ‘I came here for the antiques fair. There.’ He pointed to the square about fifty metres away, which was cluttered with stalls. ‘I was walking down to this café when I saw you come in.’
‘Liar. You followed me,’ she said, her brows knitted and her arm reaching out to her side, waving, gesturing for him to shoo. ‘I don’t know what your motive is, but leave me alone. I told you I didn’t need your help. I’m not going to sell the villa to you, or anyone, so you may as well forget it.’
‘What? Liv, I promise, that’s not why I want to help you. I’m concerned.’
Seeing the waiter come towards her with her coffee, she took a much-needed deep breath and slid on to the chair. ‘I’m sorry. I … This is just getting too much.’
‘I thought it would. That’s why I want to help.’ Hugh’s face white, his blue eyes pained, he glanced from her to the waiter, then back at her, staring into her coffee. ‘Maybe you need some time alone. You have my number,’ he said, then turned and walked back towards the square.
Olivia picked up a sugar lump, threw it into her large cup of coffee and stirred, watching it disintegrate. Bringing the cup to her lips, she sipped impatiently. It was piping hot. Peering up, she watched him disappear. In all honesty, she didn’t know what she wanted at the moment.
The sound of water lapping the shore caught her attention. She turned to face the steps leading to the lake, and observed a gentle shelf of sand being softly licked by calm surges of waves. How did such a large body of water deliver such tender strokes? The calm after the storm, she thought watching the sun twinkle and shimmer as it now danced across the lake. Seeing a small jetty a few feet away, she noted a small boat tied loosely to a mooring. She watched as it drifted out a little way and circled, repeating its pattern with the soft steady waves mesmerizing and soothing.
She realized how tired she’d become, how much energy she had consumed in just five hours. She took another sip of her coffee and then closed her eyes. The boat still circled and the caffeine and sugar spread into her veins.
Her eyes felt heavy and, tipping back her head, she pictured the boat whirling faster, increasing until it was spinning in a vast vortex and sinking down into a deep hole. It rose again, then spun down into the hole again, then her mum appeared in the boat, holding out her arms, reaching for a small boy. She put him in the boat, then a small girl, then Olivia spun towards her, but her mum’s arms were full with the small girl and her mother watched her as she kept on spinning and spinning back down the vortex, like Alice in Wonderland. She spun deeper into the hole. Lost for ever.
‘No,’ she screamed, frozen to her seat, and opened her eyes.
‘Olivia, it’s OK,’ a voice called.
Chapter 18
Olivia tried to open her eyes. Terror still churned in her head but someone had called and she had been in a deep sleep. A silence hung in the air for several seconds. Did someone call, or was that in her dream, part of the nightmare?
A finger brushed across her hairline. The caress was soft and light. ‘Olivia, it’s Mamma. Please listen.’
‘Mamma?’ Confused, Olivia levered her body up from her slouch, recalling the earlier event. It was her mamma; her mamma was here, and holding her hand. Did her mamma catch her after all?
‘Yes, I have some explaining to do, so please don’t get angry. At least not until you’ve heard me out. Liv, I’m sorry. I don’t know how I’m ever going to make it up to you. I’ve spent my life ashamed, and praying you would never find out the truth. Can you hear me, Liv?’
Olivia peered at the hands resting on the arm. ‘How did you know where I was?’
‘Oh, sweetheart, there’s not that many places you can go around here, but that’s not important right now. I’m here because you need to know the truth.’ Roz clenched her hand tighter and leaning forward, picked up Olivia’s chin. ‘I know you’ll find it hard to forgive me, and I won’t blame you if you can’t, but somehow, it’s clear you know and now clear how stupid I was trying to cover it up.’
Olivia cleared her throat, swallowing down the rising emotion. ‘Well, you have the opportunity, so explain now, because right now I’m finding it hard to function, on any level,’ Olivia said, biting back tears along with the constant store of restlessness and unease she had undergone since her discovery – almost like grief itself – and the bursts of tearfulness, and the panic episodes earlier. Nervous about driving she may be, but those panics were alarming. Whilst she understood Nonna’s death and splitting up with Will could be making her vulnerable, there was something highly unsavoury about all this. Was it the lies, being betrayed?
All her life she had tried to stitch the invisible scars and bruising created by her parents’ abandonment. That was behind her, patched up. This was a new incision. No, not an incision. Learning you have a whole family out there who have totally excluded you for forty years wasn’t just a surface cut that would easily heal over. This was a major limb that had been severed, or a major organ that needed a transfusion.
‘Why, Mum, why was I excluded from the family?’
Roz closed her eyes then lowered her head, studying the floor for a few seconds before taking a deep breath and stroking the back of Olivia’s hand. ‘Honestly, I have no defence, no excuse to offer, only that when I followed your father to Ibiza, we both had every intention of coming back for you. Certainly, I did. I’m not sure how or why it went so wrong. As I’ve tried to explain before, your father was persuasive, I was young, your gran was so lovely, helpful, accommodating, and you were settled.’
‘But, I don’t understand. Surely it would have been the most natural thing in the world to want to keep your children together?’
‘We did, of course we did. It was always the intention. I returned home after three months. We hadn’t found anything we could afford in Ibiza. I didn’t want to raise you in a camp with hippies, with the alcohol and drugs … well …’
Olivia clutched her chest. ‘I didn’t know you shared a campsite with my siblings though. I sort of accepted you were young and without Dad found it difficult to cope. Living in the mountains, I thought it was your escape. I imagined you lived in a tiny chalet, miles from anywhere. But the chalets you cleaned. The whole thing was a lie. And there’s bags of space for three children.’
‘Liv, when my nonno gave us the land here, we really had every intention. We were building and taking care of the twins. There was no way I was taking them back to England.’
‘What, in case you left them there too?’
‘No, of course not.’ Roz pursed her lips as she shook her head. ‘Liv, it’s hard to explain and I know I’ve tried to tell you this before, but maybe it will make more sense to you now.’ Roz tugged at a long strand of hair, which had escaped its band. ‘After your papa was killed, you were four, just settled at school and, as I’ve told you, your gran was devastated. It sounds horrid but we hadn’t told Gran and Grandad about the twins. We hadn’t been back to London; we didn’t have time to write even.’
‘What? You couldn’t find time to
write?’ Olivia held her head between her hands in disbelief. ‘What sort of excuse is that?’
Roz raised her hands and, clenching her fists, waved them in the air. ‘We had just built our first cabin, your papa and I. The one that was to be our little home. It replaced the camper van.’
‘No, really, I don’t understand.’ Olivia turned her head towards the lake, then jumped up from her chair. ‘I don’t want to hear any more.’
‘Olivia, wait … Oh God, I’m so ashamed, and you’ll think Papa and I so irresponsible.’ Her mother swallowed. ‘Please sit down,’ she said grabbing a length of slivery hair. ‘You have to understand who we were then, your papa and me. I’m not saying what we did was right. We partied, used drugs, cannabis, nothing dangerous, OK. It widened to LSD, but what was central to our thinking was we imagined ourselves as free spirits. We were nonconformists; we deliberately distanced ourselves from conformist principles. We rejected the norm and all that normal stood for, and it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. We were proud to be different.
‘Your papa didn’t like London. After the war, for many years, it still resembled a bombsite. People were rebuilding their lives and working hard, reinstating their material objects and comforts. It was understandable when I think about it now. So many died for their freedom in the war. And of course, respectability was Ronnie and Nora’s religion, although Nora did keep up her faith, but Ronnie, as you know, could be controlling. A bit like my papa.
‘Their time in the services affected them. They couldn’t shake those regimented routines any more than their will to build themselves new lives – and they worked hard. Maybe the adults didn’t have the time for their children, but we rebelled, I suppose. We wanted freedom from authority, from family ties, marriage, and to do things our way and to make a different life for ourselves, not with rules but with love. Ibiza met our dreams but, clearly, things didn’t go as we thought. We tried to be responsible adults; that’s why we returned to London, but your papa couldn’t do it.’ Roz’s head dropped. She lit a cigarette.
