After the Honeymoon (50 page)

‘OK.’ The acceptance was out of her mouth before she could take it back or even justify it to herself.

‘We’re going to see Grandad,’ she told Gawain as she dressed Willow, giving up on her son, who was still glued into his Spider-Man ensemble. ‘But don’t tell Granny.’

‘Why?’ Gawain’s face shone with indignation. ‘It’s wrong to tell lies.’

‘It’s not exactly a lie; it’s just keeping a secret.’ Oh dear, it was so hard teaching right from wrong.

Gawain nodded seriously, putting a finger to his mouth. ‘Spider-Man does that too.’

The only reason she was doing this, Emma told herself as they stood on her father’s doorstep, was for the children. Her separation from Tom had taught her how important it was to maintain family ties.

‘Emma!’ Dad scooped her into a big, warm hug. ‘And this must be Gawain and Willow.’ His eyes looked suspiciously bright. ‘At last! Come on in. We’ve got ice cream for pudding; it was your mum’s favourite when she was your age.’

It wasn’t until she went into the sitting room and saw the cards on the mantelpiece that she realised. It was Dad’s birthday. A special birthday.

‘I wasn’t expecting you to remember,’ said Dad, slightly embarrassed. ‘It was more that I didn’t want to reach fifty and still not be in touch with my grandkids. Milestones like that make you think.’

Emma could see that. The second thing she noticed was that
she
was there. Trisha, the woman who had broken up her parents, if Mum’s story was to be believed.

‘I’m so glad you came.’ The tall, elegant woman with grey hair smiled and held out her hand. Ignoring it, Emma scooped Willow up and sat on the sofa. Seeing Dad was one thing but being friendly to this woman was another. ‘Ted’s been like a cat on hot bricks since he saw you last. All he does is talk about you.’

Was she jealous? Or just being welcoming? It was hard to know.

Lunch was a bit tense, with Trisha trying to make conversation and Emma ignoring her. Luckily, the kids provided a distraction.

‘I only eat food that’s red and black,’ declared Gawain.

‘Since when?’ retorted Emma.

‘That’s what Spider-Man does,’ he replied, ignoring the question.

‘What a bright little boy,’ declared Trisha.

If she thought she could endear herself by being obsequious, the woman was mistaken.

‘Emma,’ said Dad quietly when they’d all finished. ‘Can I have a quick word in the kitchen?’

Furiously she followed, taking in the square room with its huge range down one side.

‘If this is to tell me I’ve got to be nice to your wife,’ she began crossly, putting Willow down, ‘then—’

‘It’s not.’ Dad pulled out a chair for her to sit on. ‘It’s about Tom. I’d hoped you two might have made it up by now.’

Dad
knew
?

‘Tom came to see me the other week after I wrote to him.’

‘You wrote to him?’ gasped Emma. ‘Why?’

Dad looked wistful for a second. ‘Because I didn’t want him to make the same mistake that I did. So I talked to him about forgiveness.’

‘Hah! You’re a fine one to talk.’

‘Poured out his heart, he did,’ continued Dad, as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘Thought I’d understand as I’d been divorced myself. He loves you, you know.’ Then he glanced at the bump. ‘But there are some things that a man’s pride won’t let him accept. It was the same for me when your mum fell …’

He stopped suddenly. Emma’s blood ran cold as she remembered something that her mother had started to say the other day. ‘Mum got pregnant?’ she whispered. ‘After me?’

Dad nodded.

‘No!’ Emma leaped up. ‘Then where is …’

Her voice tailed off as Dad shook his head.

‘She got rid of it?’

‘Actually, she miscarried.’

‘Keith’s child?’ she whispered.

He nodded. ‘I’m sorry, love. I didn’t mean this to all come out. The point is that I can’t stand by and see my daughter suffer. Tom’s a good man. Is there anything I can do to help? Talk to him again, perhaps?’

She shook her head, still wondering whether to believe what her dad had just said. ‘He’ll never forgive me.’

‘Mummy! Trisha’s got a Spider-Man DVD.’ Gawain tugged at her hand impatiently. ‘Come and watch it.
Please!
’

‘In a minute, love.’ She turned back to Dad. ‘Actually, there
is
something you can do.’

He looked hopeful. ‘Yes?’

‘You can be here for the kids. They need a male figure in their lives, someone extra now they only see Tom on Saturdays.’

Her father’s eyes were wet again. ‘That’s the best present you could have given me.’

‘Talking of birthdays,’ she added, ‘you can come to Gawain’s party next month if you like.’ Then she dropped her voice. ‘Mum will be there. Better not bring Trisha if you don’t mind.’

She wouldn’t say anything to Mum, Emma decided. Otherwise there’d be a scene. She’d just let Dad arrive and then see what Mum said. Maybe then she’d be able to tell from their conversation exactly what had happened all those years ago. After all, she and Tom had agreed to have the party in their own home: it was up to them whom they invited. Not Mum.

‘Rather you than me,’ said Bernie, impressed when she confided in her. ‘Pregnancy seems to have done something to you. Or is it being on your own?’

Bernie was right. Both had made her bolder, braver. Yes, she was a single mum, and yes, she had done something stupid to cause that. But if Rosie Harrison, back on the island, had managed on her own with a young son for all those years, then so could she.

Meanwhile, Gawain was getting feverish with excitement. By the time his birthday actually arrived, he was almost hysterical, bouncing around with his ‘NOW I AM FIVE’ birthday badge.

Tom came to pick them up. He’d decorated the house beautifully, Emma had to say, with ‘Happy Birthday’ balloons and streamers. He’d also – without telling her – bought their son a Spider-Man pedal car. ‘It will have to stay here,’ Emma told Gawain. ‘There isn’t room at Mum’s.’

Tom looked awkward. ‘I was going to talk to you about that,’ he began but then the doorbell rang and the first of the guests arrived.

By the time Mum got there, they were well into Pass the Parcel, or Piss the Parcel as Bernie called it, because so many kids wet themselves with excitement. But Emma kept glancing at the clock.

Where was Dad? Maybe he’d decided not to come without Trisha. If so, it was his loss. Meanwhile, it was really odd having Tom next to her, helping out as though they were a normal couple. Some of the other parents who had stayed to help were clearly curious.

At last, the doorbell! ‘I’ll get it,’ Mum called out before Emma could move. Uh-oh …

‘What are
you
doing here?’

‘Actually, I was invited.’

Emma listened through the half-closed lounge door with trepidation.

‘After what you did to me with that woman?’

‘Come on, Shirley. You know there was more to it than that.’

There was a brief silence. ‘Not here,’ she heard her mother whisper. ‘And you’d best not be saying anything. I’ll only deny it any road.’

Emma bent down as a sudden pain shot through her. Then another, making her gasp out loud.

‘Are you all right?’ Dimly she was aware of Tom’s footsteps and his arm around her.

‘She’s started,’ gasped Bernie, pointing to a trickle of water.

‘I can’t have!’ Emma’s voice rang out above the Pass the Parcel music. She stared up at Tom pleadingly, willing him to do something. ‘It’s too early. Far too early!’

‘After the honeymoon, my (separated) parents reunited. They said that seeing us get married made them want to start again.’

Anonymous

ROSIE

March in Greece was often beautiful. If you were lucky – as they were this year – the temperature was mild and you could wear shorts and a tee-shirt. Small purple bougainvillea buds were already beginning to form on the tree climbing up the villa in preparation for summer.

Like many other house owners on the island, Rosie had paid one of the local builders to give the villa a fresh lick of white paint.

If only she could do the same to her own life. Gloss over those feelings for Winston which just wouldn’t go away.

Even so, she told herself, sweeping the rooms as part of her general spring clean, it was so good to be back in Siphalonia! It wasn’t just the sea; it was the people too. She’d lost count of the hugs and the ‘Welcome backs’ that she and Jack had been showered with on their return.

‘I thought, maybe, you would remain in England,’ sniffed Cara who, despite Rosie’s instructions to take a rest, had insisted on donning a brown headscarf and wielding a broom alongside her.

Rosie swallowed hard as she pulled out one of the beds to reach the dust that had got to the far corners. They’d been through this so many times since she’d come back in January, but it seemed that, like Greco, Cara was still in need of reassurance. ‘I’ve told you,’ she declared, shaking her duster out of the window,
‘this
is my real home.’

Judging from the contented nod, Cara finally seemed to believe her. Just as well she couldn’t read the doubts in Rosie’s head. However hard she tried to dismiss Winston’s face from her mind – how dare he presume to turn their lives upside down with his suggestion of America and boarding school! – it kept coming back again. His persistent texts and emails didn’t help. Apparently the Americans were so keen to have him that they’d extended their deadline.

‘It is my home too,’ said Cara quietly. ‘My nephew’s wife, she does not want me there any more.’

Rosie stopped herself just in time from admitting that Greco had told her this already. Cara was fiercely proud. It must have taken a lot for her to confess that.

‘
I
want you,’ she said simply, kneeling down and putting her head in the old woman’s lap. They sat for a minute in silence as Cara gently coiled her hair round a finger, rather like a small child. When she had turned up here destitute, all those years ago, the old woman had acted as the mother that Rosie could barely remember. Now it was her turn to look after Cara.

‘My daughter, she would have been like you. If that man had not taken her.’

Rosie stiffened. Cara’s daughter was a subject that had always been taboo. No one spoke about her, which was unusual in a place where local gossip was the backbone of day-to-day living. All she knew was that Elena had been lost at sea in a boating accident.

‘He took Greco’s boat one night,’ continued the old woman, almost in a sing-song voice. ‘Without permission. He took advantage of my daughter and then she drowned.’

‘Who?’ Rosie asked intently.

This was the first time that Cara had gone into detail over Elena’s death. On previous occasions, she’d darkly alluded to Greco as being responsible in some way. But Rosie knew that couldn’t be true. Greco was a good man. At least, he was now …

Cara gazed out of the window towards the sea, where a yacht with a white sail bobbed in the distance. ‘Greco did not know his boat had been taken – he was away at the time. We had to keep it all secret. That is why she had to live on the mainland.’

Poor woman. She really was losing her marbles. ‘But you said she drowned,’ corrected Rosie softly.

Cara’s fingers were twisting her hair more fiercely now. ‘Drowned in grief. Lost! Yannis took advantage of her and then refused to recognise the child.’

‘Yannis?’

Cara nodded. ‘A son needs a father, even a part-time one. It is why I told you to tell Jack and his father the truth. Naturally, I offered to bring up my grandson, but Elena, she had pride. She moved to Athens, away from the whispers. It is why I visit so often.’

Rosie could hear the smile in her voice. ‘My grandson is married now. I call him my nephew to avoid scandal but he knows the truth. He loves me. Yet it is his wife who does not want me any more.’

‘And Elena?’ She had to ask.

The hands fell away from her hair. ‘My daughter died from a broken heart although the doctors said different.’ There was a little sigh. ‘I thought that God had sent you here, with Elena’s soul inside you.’

How tragic! Yet this was the way that life went, Rosie realised, as she wrapped her arms around the older woman, rocking her back and forth in comfort. People loved each other but all too often lost each other too. If they were lucky, they found someone else to ease the pain. A new love. Or maybe an old one.

So that explained why Cara and Yannis refused to speak to each other. What a horrible man. And he’d been over-familiar with Emma Walker on the boat trip back in the summer. She’d had a word with him about that afterwards, warning him that familiarity with the guests was out of bounds.

‘It is none of your business,’ he had declared with a toss of his head.

Still, she told herself, it was essential to think like a businesswoman if she was to survive. According to the accountant, the Villa Rosa was in danger of closing down if she couldn’t think of a way to bring in more money. She had to do
something
. It went without saying that she couldn’t trouble Cara with any of this.

‘Mum?’

There was a thud of feet coming from the back door. (Why did teenagers stamp instead of walk?) Rosie only hoped Jack hadn’t skived off again. She might be glad to be back here in Siphalonia but her son hadn’t settled. The term in that English school had made him increasingly critical of his teachers on their small island. He’d also taken to hanging out with his friends much later than she would have liked. It had led to some rather loud rows.

‘Back already?’ asked Cara sharply.

Jack shrugged, flinging his bag on the floor. ‘Our teacher let us off early.’ He threw a challenging look at his mother. ‘Told us to finish the lesson on our own.’

‘So why didn’t you?’ demanded Rosie, picking up his bag, which was in her way.

‘I did.’ Her son glared at her. ‘I was quick and that’s why I’m back. You don’t trust me, do you?’

He grabbed his bag out of her arms, but not before she’d noticed something poking out of the top. A packet of cigarettes.

‘It is natural for a boy to smoke at his age,’ soothed Greco, massaging her back as they lay in bed, later that day.