Last Child
Page 35
“Not yet, but I expect he’ll get in touch when he’s ready,” she said, and I nearly fell off my chair. We never had a conversation about that man that didn’t involve barbed comments, angry outbursts, tears and my regret that I’d ever mentioned him. Then she said, “Phil is very much a lost lamb in the wilderness. He’s messed up everything he’s ever done because he has no direction, no purpose. I’ve been praying for him.” I was just glad Erin wasn’t there; there would have been much sucking in of cheeks going on. I’m not belittling anyone’s religious belief, you understand, but it was just so typical of Isabella to have hurtled full pelt into this latest phase in her life. Whereas her mother was just your average devout Christian, Isabella had gone down the ‘born again’ route, and normal conversation without any mention of her spiritual awakening was now impossible.
I suspected it was her way of coping with the loss of Phil.
Erin sat back, hands crossed over her bump. “It’s just a crutch, of course.”
“Yes, but we all need crutches sometimes.”
“Sure do. Shame she can’t come back and be my sister again, though. I thought she’d be excited about her nephew’s arrival, but she’s more interested in saving my soul because he’s fathered by a man with whom she is convinced I was having an adulterous affair. Still, it might be different when he’s born, especially when I ask her to be godmother.” She winced. “Ouch, this wine’s giving me heartburn!”
“Knew it would,” said Robert, with satisfaction. “Here.” He handed her a white tablet, and lifted his face up to the sun. “Ah, this is the life! Nothing like the first outdoor beer of the year.”
At that moment Pat came out, camera in hand.
“Are you going to stop whatever it is you’re doing, and join us?” Erin asked.
“In a minute. I want to take a picture first.” She put the camera up to her eye and squinted. “The light’s wonderful. You don’t believe all that rubbish about not being photographed when you’re pregnant, do you, Erin?”
“What’s that, then?” Robert asked.
“Oh, some people say it steals the soul of the baby, or some other such mediaeval sounding rubbish,” I said.
“What, you mean Harry’s soul could be forever trapped inside a Nikon Coolpix?” Erin grinned. “Far out!”
“Come on, then.” Pat gestured at us to lean in towards the middle of the table.
We did so, laughing and being generally silly, and Pat snapped several off.
“Now, who wants to propose a toast?” Will said. “It being the first day of spring, and all that.”
“No one say anything that’ll make me cry!” Erin said.
“Can I go first?” Robert said. “Oh—no. I was going to say ‘to my beautiful wife, and my son’, but then I remembered that she keeps saying no when I ask her to marry me.” He leant over to her and they kissed. Obviously it wasn’t too much of an issue, then.
“Okay,” I said, “I’ll do one.” I cleared my throat. “To little Harry, and may he arrive when he’s supposed to so that he’s a nice steady Taurean instead of a fickle Gemini.”
“To Harry,” Will and Pat echoed.
“Oy!” said Robert, “I’m a Gemini—I’m not fickle, am I?”
“No, because you have most of your natal chart in steady Taurus, with a passionate Scorpio ascendant.” I said. “I looked you all up in my book.” Ah—I was going to have to try not to get tedious about my new hobby, wasn’t I?
“Isabella’s Gemini as well,” Robert said.
“No she’s not, Isabella’s got a sign all to herself,” said Erin. “Darling, will you go and get a glass for Pat? You could bring the wine out and fill them all up—I’ll need fizzy water with mine, though. Oh, and can you get another beer for Will?”
“I am here only to do your bidding, my sweet,” he said.
“Glad we’ve got that sorted out!”
He laughed, and went to do as she asked anyway. Five minutes later he returned with not only the drinks but a bowl of olives and another of Mini Cheddars.
“Are you sure you don’t want to marry this bloke?” I said to Erin, helping myself to a handful of biscuits then taking a sip from my refilled wine glass.
“My turn to do a toast!” Pat said. “To Hannah, the best friend, nanny and employer in the Home Counties—I can’t imagine having a better job.”
“Ah, now you’re talking,” said Erin. She raised her glass. “To my best nanny, ever, who was much, much more fun than all the others and made the best puddings in the world!”
“Still does,” said Pat.
They all echoed my name and I felt myself going unbecomingly pink. It was a lovely moment but I felt a bit embarrassed about the puddings bit; no one could have denied that my stomach resembled one. It was rivalled only by Erin’s. Worst, I couldn’t express my gratitude because my mouth was stuffed full of Mini Cheddars. Eighteen months to the big five-o; perhaps it was time I considered dieting again. Never mind fashion, there was my health to consider—especially now Harry was on the way.
“My turn,” Will said. “Let me think a minute.”
“Promise you won’t make me cry.” said Erin. “Though everything does these days—I’m becoming more and more of a big soppy emotional twat the bigger I get.”
“And sounding more like your dad, too,” said Will. “Okay.” He stood up. “To the Lanchester family—and the Dudleys! May Erin be the jewel in their crown, and may little Harry have lots of little Harrys of his own, so that we never forget my best and oldest friend, without whom we would not all be sitting here together today.”
“Hear, hear!” I said, and clapped.
“Will!” said Erin, her bottom lip trembling. “I told you!”
“To the Lanchester family, and the Dudleys,” Pat and I echoed.
“Especially me,” said Robert, with his devastating white-toothed smile, and I must admit that I wondered what Erin’s problem was. Ninety-nine point nine percent of women would have dragged him up the aisle sharpish before he changed his mind.
“Robert’s turn,” I said. “A proper one, this time.”
“Okay,” he said. He didn’t stand up, and only raised his glass a couple of inches. “To the memory of those no longer with us, lost before their time.”
Erin turned to him, and touched his hand. “Shall we make this a happy day, looking forward, instead of back?” Her voice was gentle, and Robert took her hand in his. For a moment I felt cross with her, though. There couldn’t be a day when Robert didn’t think about Amy, and, besides, she hadn’t minded when Will remembered her father, had she? I hoped the company wasn’t bringing out her megalomaniac tendencies, and that she would grow to be a sunny, charismatic and magnanimous Leo the lion, not a self-centred one. Leos are ruled by the sun, you see. Life-giving warmth at best, devastating omnipotence at worst.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, you’re right.” He looked around at us. “I’ll leave the final toast to my wife, then—which she will be, if it’s the last bloody thing I do!” He laughed. “She forgets who’s the boss round here, sometimes!”
Oh, no she doesn’t, I thought. She knows exactly who’s in charge.
His phone beeped on the table. “It’s Raine,” he said, shading the screen with his hand so he could see the text. “Says she wants to talk to me about something.” He put it in his pocket. “I’ll call her later.”
Erin leant over and stroked his hair. “Say hi to her from me,” she said, then she stood up, slowly, still holding his hand. “Okay, it’s my turn.” She raised her face and her glass to the sky.
“Is there anyone left to toast?” Will said.
“Oh, yes! To lovely Will, who’s been like an uncle to me all my life—” she reached over to kiss Will on the cheek, then stood up, holding his hand “—and helps me look after Daddy’s company just because he loved my dad, not because of any hidden personal agenda.” She smiled down at Will most fondly, but the look in her eyes told me she was thinking of something else.
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“You’ve gone all solemn,” said Robert.
“I know,” she said. “I suddenly feel solemn. I’ve got a lovely feeling about today. It’s a good day, a special day.” She dropped Will’s hand and raised her glass. “I want you all to drink to me, too, if that’s okay, is it? Because I am going to make Dad’s company the greatest ever, for my son, and his sons and daughters, and all that come after them, and for all of our customers too!”
“This will be after you’ve taken at least three months maternity leave, I presume?” Robert said.
“Three months only,” she said, and grinned. “I decided this morning, darling. We’re going to have a crèche at work, nannies provided by Heaven Sent. I don’t want to be away from Harry all day, but I do want to work. It’s going to be the best company for working mothers in the country! Oh, and I’m never going to hand over the reins to anyone else, either; I shall carry on at the helm until I’m so old and decrepit I have to be wheeled into the boardroom in a bath chair!” We laughed, and she took a little bow, as far as her enormous bump would allow. “Please raise your glasses, ladies and gentlemen—to the golden age of Lanchester Estates!”
“The golden age of Lanchester Estates!” I said. “If you’re going super-American, you could have a gym, too.”
“May your reign be long and fruitful,” said Will, with great affection.
“And may the directors’ corridor never smell of Johnson’s baby powder and wet nappies,” said Robert. I have to say, he looked a little doubtful.
“Or regurgitated mashed chicken and carrot dinner,” said Pat. “Yuck! That was always the one that made me feel the most nauseous when I was a nanny.”
“She’ll have Harry attending board meetings even before he starts school, you wait,” I said.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Robert smiled. Just.
“A crèche is a wonderful idea, and so’s a gym—not that I shall be using either,” said Will, and clinked his glass against Erin’s. “To the golden age of Lanchester Estates!”
“To the golden age of Lanchester Estates,” said Robert, “and all who sail in her.”
Will and I were suffering from damp eye syndrome, too; I provided tissues to wipe away our happy tears, and the five of us clinked our glasses together yet again. Erin was right, it was indeed a special day, and if I’d believed in that sort of thing I might have thought that her father was looking down, smiling and laughing along with us.
The sun came out from behind a cloud and shone on my favourite Lanchester child’s luxurious, long chestnut mane and her beautiful, strong, intelligent, happy face.
I thought she looked just like a queen.
***
Ten Minutes Before
In a kitchen in Northamptonshire on that bright spring morning, Raine watched her husband and fifteen-month-old Mabel chasing around the garden. She waved at them; Martin held Mabel up to wave back, her little face pink with exertion.
Sometimes, her mischievous dark eyes looked so much like her father’s that Raine could almost hear his voice.
“I love you, bonny lass.”
She remembered the feel of her face against his when they said goodbye, when she told him what she hoped might happen. He hadn’t said anything, he’d just held her so tightly she had trouble breathing.
He’d kissed her and stroked her hair, and she’d buried her face in his neck and soaked it with her tears.
“I love you,” she whispered to the little girl running around outside, “and I love your daddy, too.”
She’d known as she told him that he would forget, but perhaps some piece of his mind still kept her words safe and recalled them for brief pockets of time.
Until Mabel’s features shed their babyish appearance and took on the look of the person she was to become, she hadn’t even been sure.
Raine had promised not to witness his deterioration, but since Mabel’s birth the world was a different place. She knew people would consider her actions foolish (selfish and wicked, even), but she could not deprive her daughter of meeting her father—or her brothers and sister.
There would be many difficult paths to tread in the near future; she’d done a terrible thing to her marriage, and for that, she suspected she would pay dearly. For now, though, she wanted him to know, before it was too late, that their love lived on in their daughter.
THE END
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