The airport building was slightly cooler, and Octavia was
waving excitedly to someone in a gallery over their heads.
‘Who’s that?’ said Gabriel gloomily. ‘Another friend of
your father’s?’
She smiled at him; she seemed oddly cheerful and
relaxed, in spite of the heat and the long flight. ‘You are in
a grump. No, it’s Bob. Elvira’s husband. I told you about Elvira, didn’t I?’
‘No, I don’t think you did.’ He tried not to sound sulky.
‘Elvira’s our cook — well, housekeeper, I suppose.’
‘Your housekeeper! I thought we were going to be on
our own in this house.’
‘Gabriel, we are. She lives with her husband and some of
her children in Holetown. She conies in every day. For
heaven’s sake, calm down. Bobby, hallo.’
‘Hallo, Octavia. Good to see you. This way now.’
Bob was tall, thin, grizzled, very relaxed. Gabriel liked
the way he called Octavia Octavia, not Mrs Fleming. He
followed him over to a rather battered car.
‘This is Gabriel, Bob. Gabriel Bingham. He’s a politician
from England. Gabriel, you sit in the front, then you can
see more.’
Outside again, the blanket of heat had descended. He had
thought the car might be air conditioned. It wasn’t.
‘How’s your dad, Octavia?’
‘He’s very well, Bob. Working too hard.’
‘And Mrs Muirhead?’
‘She’s fine too,’ said Octavia quickly. ‘How’s Elvira?’
‘Elvira’s fine. She’s very happy about the new baby. And
he’s beautiful.
‘I’m sure. Gabriel, look, you see that great palace over
there?’
It did appear to be a palace: Moorish in style, vast,
painted purple and aqua green, with glittering minarets.
‘Who lives there, for God’s sake?’
‘It’s the supermarket. Isn’t it wonderful? Waitrose, eat
your heart out. Now look, over there, Gabriel, that’s sugar
cane. See? And over there …’
He tried to smile, to appear pleased and interested. The
drive seemed to go on for ever: hot, blindingly sunny, the
old car lurching over the road. It wasn’t very pretty, not as
he had imagined it, just an endless, rather narrow, two-lane
highway, lined with small wooden houses set on stilts. He felt a bit sick: and very depressed. What was he doing here, why had he come?
‘Zoe? Zoe, hallo, it’s Ritz. Look, is your mum there? Oh,
she’s not. Oh, I see. No, nothing’s wrong. Well, Romilly’s
a bit upset. No, nothing serious. Yes, if you could. How
long do you think you might be? Oh, fine. Yes, we’re both
here.’
‘I’m fine,’ said Romilly. ‘Honestly. I’m just so sorry I was well,
silly.’
‘Romilly, you weren’t silly,’ said Ritz. Her voice
sounded rather shaky.
‘Yes, I was. Next time—’
‘There won’t be a next time,’ said Serena smoothly, ‘not
with Alix Stefanidis. I do wish these bloody people would
remember who’s paying the bill.’
‘Serena—’ said Ritz. Her voice had an edge to it. ‘Not
now. Now look, Romilly, what do you want to do? Go
out for a drink, go home, call your mum?’
‘I certainly don’t want to call my mum,’ said Romilly.
She managed a rather shaky smile. ‘It’s exactly the sort of
thing she was worrying about, I expect. She’d be on the
next plane down. Hideous! Honestly, I’m fine, please don’t
worry about me. I—’ Her mobile rang suddenly, from the
depths of her bag; she pulled it out. ‘Sorry, I thought it was
switched off. Hallo, this is Romilly. Oh - hi, Fen. Yes.
What? Oh, okay. I’m a bit tired. What? Oh, oh, I see. No,
that’s fine. Honestly. I can spend it with my sister.’
Zoe’s stomach lurched. Now what?
“Bye, Fen.’ She switched off the phone, smiled the same
shaky smile. ‘That was Fenella. Her grandmother’s taking
them all out to the ballet, apparently. Surprise treat. So they
can’t have me tonight after all. Fancy a video, Zoe?’
‘Well — I …’ Shit! That was all she needed. To miss the
one good night she was going to get for a long time; she’d
be off to the States on Monday, probably wouldn’t see Ian
again.
‘What’s the problem?’ said Ritz.
‘Well, Rom can’t stay home on her own. I did have
plans. But — doesn’t matter.’
‘What sort of plans did you have? Share your exciting
young lifestyle with us,’ said Ritz, grinning. She was clearly
glad of a distraction from the horrors of the day.
‘Oh, just going to the Ministry of Sound. With some — some friends.’
‘Sounds good. I hate going there these days, I feel so old.
I do, occasionally, talent spotting, but not any more often
than I have to. Shame, Zoe. Was it for anything special?’
‘Celebrating her A-levels,’ said Romilly, ‘well, hers and
her friends’.’
‘Oh, Zoe, you can’t miss that. Romilly, how would you
like to come out to supper with us? We were going to have
a quiet evening together. Honestly, it would be a pleasure.
We could go somewhere fun, like the Hard Rock. Or the
Fashion Cafe.’
‘No,’ said Zoe, quickly. ‘No, honestly. I’ll stay home
with her. I haven’t got much to celebrate anyway!’
‘I don’t want you to stay home and look after me, Zoe.
Look, I really would like to go out with Ritz and Serena
tonight. The Fashion Cafe’d be great, really cool.’
‘Rom, if I go out, I won’t be home till four or five in the
morning. You can’t stay at the house alone. Mum would
never forgive me.’
‘Why not? God, I really am not a child! But look, tell
you what. Mrs Blake would come over. Just to sleep at the
house. She offered yesterday when she was doing the
ironing, before I fixed to stay with Fenella. How’s that?’
Zoe hesitated. It was very tempting.
‘I’ll ring Mrs Blake,’ she said finally, just to make sure
she can come.’
Mrs Blake said she’d be glad to come over. Steel
Magnolias was on Sky and she had been going on to Mr
Blake about how she wished they could get it.
‘I’ll order a cab for you, Mrs Blake. On Mum’s account.
About half past eight, that all right?’
That way she could see her safely into the house before
she went off herself. Romilly was right, she told herself,
they really should stop treating her like a baby. When Zoe
had been sixteen, she’d flown out to Sydney to stay with
her aunt Bella, all by herself, and then travelled on the train
down to Melbourne, also by herself, to meet her cousins
there. There was no way her parents would think Romilly
was old enough to do that. It was the curse of the youngest
child, that Romilly was always going on about. And she did
seem to have recovered from her ordeal now. Nothing had
happened to her after all; she’d just been a bit embarrassed.
It would do her good to have a grownup evening with
Ritz and Serena. Put it in perspective. And she probably did
need to do a bit of PR on them, if she was going to make
this modelling thing work. She really did seem fine.
Absolutely fine. Nothing to worry about at all.
It just wasn’t fair of Sandy, Louise thought: not to come and
see her more. She needed people to talk to, ordinary
people, not the wretched other patients and the ghastly
nurses, and the doctor with his endless questions. Why
couldn’t Sandy see that? She was trying so hard to cope
with it all, and he just wasn’t doing anything. Obviously,
she hadn’t behaved exactly well: but for heaven’s sake,
Sandy of all people should understand why. Nobody
seemed to understand how much she hurt. What it had
been like, all of it. First losing Juliet, then her mother. And
discovering what Octavia had done. She still couldn’t
believe that of her. Having an abortion, getting rid of a
baby. After all the things she had said when Juliet had died,
about how she admired Louise so much for her courage,
about how she wouldn’t be able to bear it, about how she
could hardly begin to imagine how much it hurt, about
how she had cried for nights out of sympathy with Louise.
She’d been able to bear it, all right: she had just trotted
along to the clinic one morning, let them scrape the baby
out of her and throw it away, and then go off to her busy
life, her important meetings, without another thought for
her dead baby. Killed, incinerated, that’s what they did to them, she had read about it. Just because it wasn’t quite
perfect enough for her perfect family, and perfect marriage.
Octavia deserved to lose her husband, she really did. She
deserved to lose her baby. She needed to be shown how
much it could hurt, how much Louise had hurt. But how
did you do that, to a woman who was so hard, so tough, she
could just throw her baby away, in between breakfast and
lunch? How could she have ever loved Octavia, thought
she was her friend? Louise wouldn’t have had an abortion if
they’d said her baby had had two heads. You looked after
babies, you didn’t murder them. And then Octavia had had
another. Just like that. Less than a year later. A healthy,
beautiful baby. Who was still alive: Octavia’s baby hadn’t been found dead in her cot one morning, white and cold and still. Octavia’s baby could sit up and laugh and say dad
dad.
Juliet had just started to talk; she hadn’t said dad-dad
though. She’d said Mum-my. Not mum, not mum-mum,
but Mum-my, very beautifully, only the day before she had
died. She had been sitting on Louise’s lap, and she had
looked up at her and smiled that beautiful, perfect smile and
reached out her at little hand and touched her hair and
then said, ‘Mum-my.’ It was the first and the last thing she
had ever said. Mummy. And now she was lying under the
earth, in her little coffin, with her toys in it, wrapped in her
blanket, and she would never say or do anything, ever
again. And the other baby, the baby she had managed to
make with Tom, that was dead too, washed so painfully out
of her that terrible day. Two cold, dead babies: when she
needed them so much. And Octavia, who didn’t need any
babies, who had everything else she could possibly wish for,
including Tom, had a baby as well. Octavia deserved to lose
that baby. Lose her for ever. Then she would know how it
felt, what the pain was like.
Louise sat there, in the settling dusk, savouring her anger,
the helpful, strong anger, looking over the garden, and thinking very hard indeed about Octavia losing Minty. It made her own pain feel much better. It really did.
‘We’d better be on our way,’ said Sandy, ‘it’s after six.’
How had that happened, how had the whole afternoon just
disappeared, how had he managed not to notice it, when
for the past two and a half weeks, every hour had crawled
painfully, sickeningly past?
‘Could we go and see Mummy again on the way back?’
‘No. Visiting hours are over. And she’ll be tired.’
‘She won’t. She said she missed us, she said she wanted to
see us more.’
‘Dickon, no, old chap.’
Pattie was watching him closely; she said suddenly, ‘If
you want to go on your own, we could keep Dickon
here…’
‘No,’ said Sandy, ‘thank you all the same.’ His voice
sounded sharp, even to him; it shocked him, that sharpness.
It was a giveaway.
Pattie looked at him, her pale blue eyes very calm
suddenly. ‘Just a thought.’
‘It was very kind. But — one visit is enough, in one day.
For Louise, I mean. Come on, Dickon, off we go. Say
thank you to Mrs David.’
‘Pattie,’ said Pattie, ‘please.’
‘Thank you, Pattie,’ said Dickon solemnly. ‘Thank you
for having me. Thank you, Megan.’
‘We loved it,’ said Megan, ‘come again soon.’
‘Yes, do,’ said Pattie, ‘any time. Whenever you visit your
wife, we’d like it.’
‘Thanks. I’d like that. Good luck with your application,
Megan. Don’t forget to send the pictures.’
‘Of course not. I’ve got one frame left on the film, might
as well finish it. Mum, stand up, next to Sandy. Smile, that’s
right. Great. Mum can get them developed. Sandy, thank
you very much for your help. I wish you’d stay for supper.’
‘Maybe next time,’ said Sandy, ‘if your mother could face
it.’
‘She could face it,’ said Megan, ‘she’d like it, she gets
ever so lonely.’
‘Megan!’ said Pattie. ‘Please! You make me sound very
pathetic’
She was flushed; Sandy realised she was upset. ‘I get ever
so lonely too,’ he said, and realised it was the second time
that day he had spoken seriously out of character.
Romilly sat back in her seat at the Fashion Cafe and smiled
at Serena and Ritz. She felt rather lightheaded. Not only
had they ordered her a glass of champagne - but only one,
had then insisted she moved on to Pepsi Max — but Serena
had produced a present for her, as they settled down at the
table. It was a Donna Karan sweater, black, very sexy. ‘It’s
to make up for today. With love from us both.’
She had insisted on going to change in the ladies’; it was
quite perfect. It made her look more sophisticated without
looking older.
‘I love it,’ she said happily, sitting down again next to