The Four of Us (61 page)

‘The
gates
Destiny!' the driver shouted exasperatedly. ‘Open the blooming things, for Pete's sake!'

Primmie didn't wait to hear any more. Her Destiny had trained as a nursery care assistant and here was a care worker, working with young children, looking as if she were in her late twenties or early thirties, as fair-haired as herself and with Destiny's distinctive name.

She began running over the rough grass. Running as if her life depended on it, running as if she had wings on her heels.

As the young woman registered that she was racing towards her, a look of confusion and apprehension crossed her face.

‘I'm s-sorry,' she stammered as the children, still aboard the minibus, waved the balloons from the open windows in glee. ‘I didn't mean to do anything wrong. It's just that the balloons looked so pretty and the children did so want them …'

Primmie, hatless now and gasping for breath, floundered to a halt.

‘It's … OK,' she gasped, struggling for breath. ‘The children … can have … the balloons.'

The look of anxiety on the young woman's face cleared. She smiled sunnily. It was a smile Primmie would have known anywhere. It was her own smile. Joanne's smile. Millie's smile. Lucy's smile.'

‘I wonder,' she said, knowing that she mustn't cry tears of happiness; that she mustn't act in any way out of the ordinary. ‘If you would tell me your surname, Destiny?'

‘Gower,' Destiny said, her smile even broader as the impatient children surged out of the bus and began gathering round them.

Primmie made a sound in her throat that Destiny and her driver thought was a belated gulp of air after her run, but which was a sob.

‘And are you Mrs Dove?' the driver asked, still doggedly behind the wheel. ‘Because if you are, would you mind opening these flippin'gates so I can drive up to the house?'

‘Yes.' Primmie didn't turn her head towards him. She couldn't. She couldn't look at anything but her daughter's face. It wasn't beautiful in a classical way, but it was a pretty face, full of character and good humour. Her wide-spaced eyes were grey and thick lashed. There was a look of Kiki about her nose and cheekbones, and her mouth was the full, generous mouth she saw every day when she looked in her mirror.

‘There's a wedding taking place at the church,' she said, her heart feeling as if it would burst. ‘Shall we walk the children over to it, so that they can see the bride and throw confetti?'

Destiny gave a gasp of pleasure. ‘That would be lovely, Mrs Dove. Can the children take their balloons with them?'

‘Of course they can, and my name is Primmie.'

As, with the children still running in circles round them, they began walking across the headland, Primmie had no fears about Artemis's and Kiki's, or anyone else's, reaction. They would all instinctively know that nothing could be said to Destiny here and now. She would need to be properly prepared for what she would be told, by someone she trusted. Perhaps Arthur Bottomly, Claybourne's superintendent, or Claybourne's bursar.

She didn't think, when the news was broken to her, that Destiny would be disorientated by it. From the little she'd seen of her daughter, she thought that her reaction would be one of joyous wonderment.

With the children's balloons dancing round them, the sea breeze tugging at their hair, she said with joy so deep there were no words for it, ‘There are people at the church who have waited a long time to meet you, Destiny.'

Destiny turned to her with shining eyes. ‘Then let's run,' she said, her voice full of laughter and delight.

She slipped her hand into Primmie's and gave it a squeeze. ‘Let's run towards them as fast as we can!'

First published in 2005 by Severn House

This edition published 2012 by Bello an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Basingstoke and Oxford Associated companies throughout the world

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ISBN 978-1-4472-3062-5 EPUB
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Copyright © Margaret Pemberton, 2005

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