Authors: Grace Wynne-Jones
‘About what?’
‘About sounding so haughty about DeeDee a while back. To
t
ell the truth, I’m disappointed that she doesn’t want to see
Aggie, too.’
‘Really?’ I gaze at him with relief.
‘It’s just that I also feel that, if she’s meant to see her, she will.’ He searches my eyes. ‘Does that make any sense to you? We must
leave it up to her. She’d resent it if we tried to influence her. But I
think meeting you may have helped to make her consider it, at least.’
‘OK.’ I fold the white paper napkin the cake was wrapped in.
‘It’s not simple, is it? Finding DeeDee. It’s really just the start of
something else. I don’t know why I thought that finding her would be enough.’ And what I want to add, only I don’t, is that maybe it’s a bit like love. It’s not enough to find it; you have to know what to do with it, how to nurture and cherish it. I gaze
with a sudden, terrible yearning at the deep curve of Nathaniel’s
eyelashes. Surely he must see it in me? Surely he must know what
I feel for him?
His eyes stay on mine for a moment, and then he leans back. ‘So how do you feel about going to California now?’ he asks.
‘I don’t know,’ I mumble. ‘I mean, if April has made up her mind to come over to Marie’s party and make her grand announcement, I don’t really think I can stop her. Going out to California to talk to her about it might even make her dig in her heels. She’s very stubborn.’
Nathaniel looks at me solemnly.
‘And my views on America are rather mixed, these days,
anyway,’ I say. ‘I don’t really know what it stands for any more.
It doesn’t seem to be like… like it was. It’s even sent me off on protest marches.’
‘I think there are many Americas,’ Nathaniel says dreamily.
‘There are things about it I love and things I hate, but it’s a special
place for me. I love its buzz and enthusiasm. I love the innocence a
nd honesty you can find there, when you get away from the
crap… and there’s plenty of that.’ He yawns and rubs his eyes.
‘I think mainly I just loved the house we lived in there. That’s
what I wanted to go back to,’ I whisper. I would love to lean over
and rest my head on his shoulder. We are both sleepy; it’s been such a very long day.
‘I wish I could have met Craig,’ I say drowsily, ‘but he was off getting some tiling put up in the villa in Tuscany, the one Alfredo
left to DeeDee. It has an olive grove and orange trees. She showed
me pictures of it. She spends part of the winter there.’
Nathaniel doesn’t reply. I glance at him warmly and find myself thinking he seems more like DeeDee than Craig did in the photo. He is exactly the sort of son I imagine she would have. It is extraordinary how he found her so easily He is asleep, his head tilting towards mine. He moves closer and closer, until his cheek
is resting on my shoulder. I don’t move away.
Chapter
Forty-Two
‘There really are thousands
of hotel accessories on offer,
ranging from the popular Corby trouser-press to the very
latest in wall-mounted coffee units and even fine bone china! The
right accessories can play a crucial part in a hotel’s success, for
they offer a panache and sense of comfort that discerning guests
will note and savour.’
Phew! I press the Send button, and the feature is on its way to
Greta with only minutes to spare. I hardly know what it says. I think the main theme was that hotel accessories are frightfully important.
I now have less than an hour to get to the church for Milly’s
christening. At least I’ve already showered and put on deodorant.
I rush up to the bedroom and tumble into a thermal vest, a pair
of tights and the Mediterranean-blue cotton dress I’ve bought for
Marie’s party. I am the sort of person who favours layers, even in
summer. This dress is covered in small pink roses and looks suitably seasonal, but it’s long-sleeved and loose enough that I can secrete a thin woollen jumper underneath it, should this be called for.
I check my answering machine and mobile, just in case
Nathaniel phoned me while I was typing frantically. He hasn’t. In
fact, I haven’t heard from him for days, not since we returned from London. He’s probably off with Fabrice or hunting for Greta’s gold bracelet in the garden. Whatever he’s up to, he clearly hasn’t had time to ask me how I am doing with my enormous and extremely cumbersome secret. I feel like I’m dragging it round with me. I keep wanting to tell someone. I
mustn’t drink too much at the christening party or it might burst
out of me. How did my life become so complicated?
I find myself thinking of the long talk I had with Mum last
night in her spotless kitchen. She kept saying that I mustn’t allow
Diarmuid to put me off marriage. She is very angry with
Diarmuid. She seems to have forgotten that I left him first. I
haven’t gone into the mice situation with her, but I have admitted
that, during the first months of my marriage, I felt somewhat neglected. I think she suspects that Diarmuid became romantically involved with Charlene shortly after the wedding. I have tried to tell her that I think this is enormously unlikely, but she
won’t listen. ‘I never really trusted him,’ she said, even though I
know this is untrue and she thought he was very loyal and steady.
‘He seemed shifty somehow. And he never really looked you in the eyes.’
I helped myself to a shortcake biscuit as she listed his
shortcomings. It was fascinating to watch her editing her
memories, tweaking the details into a story that suited her.
‘Mum, do you remember the house we had in California?’ I
said during a brief pause. Of course, I knew she must remember.
‘Yes.’ Mum gave me a strange look. ‘Why do you mention it?’
‘It was lovely, wasn’t it? So big and soft, somehow. Remember
how there was a hammock in that old oak tree?’
She busied herself filling the kettle.
‘And the sprinkler on the lawn… I used to love running into the jets of water in my swimsuit.’
I realised I shouldn’t have mentioned the word ‘lawn’. It’s a
loaded word in our family. My mother can’t hear it without
feeling she is being reproached.
‘The garden was nice, but it was too big,’ she said briskly. ‘I was the one who had to look after it. I was the one who had to rake the leaves and water the flowers and cut the grass.’
But you enjoyed it
,
I wanted to say to her.
I know you did. I saw it on your face. You even went to the garden centre to buy
complicated plants that came with long lists of instructions
.
But I
didn’t say this, because she has forgotten. It is part of the world she left behind.
‘I know about April’s father.’ I decided to just say it.
Mum remained with her back to me, staring out at the concrete.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ I went over to her and put an arm gently
around her shoulders. ‘It was just something that… that
happened. It happens to lots of people.’
‘How did you find out?’ she said in a whisper.
‘April told me when I was in New York. When she gave
me your birthday brooch.’
‘Oh.’ She didn’t move away from me. I could feel the sadness in her, but I could also feel the relief. ‘Well, I suppose you had to
know sometime.’ She turned to face me. Her eyes were glistening.
‘We should have told people before, I suppose, but then we left it
so long that it became… it became harder to explain, somehow.
And anyway, who would understand it? We don’t really come from that kind of family, do we? They all seem so very…’
‘Well behaved?’
‘Yes, exactly.’ She smiled at me. ‘But I don’t want you to worry
about Marie’s party. I’ll be there for you. If they get too nosy
about Diarmuid, I’ll interrupt and tell them about that wonderful
solo concert your father gave the other day. Some of them are quite impressed that I married such a talented musician.’
I felt a stab of guilt that I hadn’t made it to the concert myself,
but it was a lunchtime concert in a faraway hall and I was very taken up with hotel accessories. I should have found the time to
attend, I realised. My father enjoys being a member of an
orchestra, but his occasional solo concerts are what really buoy his spirit. He rehearses for them for months.
After this there was a long silence, in which Mum tried to a
djust to the news that I knew about April’s parentage. She did
this by tidying things – wiping the table and drying cutlery, which
she then placed carefully in a drawer. When the phone rang, she answered it and had a conversation about the charity shop where
she sometimes works; from the snatches of conversation I heard, it seemed that they were going to have a really big sort-out soon, because they had far too many men’s jumpers on display and not
enough ‘quality women’s wear’. It seemed to be just the sort of
conversation my mother needed. She returned looking much
more cheery.
‘Well, I suppose you had to know sometime,’ she repeated,
mostly to herself, as she started making freshly ground coffee. ‘Of course, your father loves her as much as if she were his own child.
He always has.’
‘I know,’ I replied, not adding that he probably loves her even
more than that. There has always been a fierce bond between them. She demanded his love, and he gave it. He would feel so
betrayed if April announced, in front of the entire family, that Al
was in fact her biological father.
‘Mum,’ I began slowly. ‘You know April says she wants to come over for Marie’s gathering?’
‘Yes.’ My mother beamed. ‘It’s wonderful. We haven’t seen her
for so long.’
‘I… I think she wants to tell people about Al.’ I forced the
words out of me. ‘She’s angry that you haven’t told people. She’s
been in therapy. She… she feels we’ve been living a lie.’
‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous!’ Mum shrugged this off. ‘She
wouldn’t do that. April’s not like that. I’ve told her we’ll tell people when… when the time feels right.’
‘But you said you’d tell people when she was twenty-one, and
you didn’t,’ I reminded her.
‘Maybe people don’t need to know,’ Mum said. ‘I think April
realises that now.
She
knows; that’s the important thing. And s
he’s spent time with – with her father in California. It’s not like
we’ve prevented her from seeing him.’
‘She told me she was going to make an announcement at Marie’s party.’
‘Of course she won’t!’ Mum declared. ‘She would have told me.
She just says things like that sometimes. She has a dramatic side.’