Never Say Goodbye (46 page)

It was true, it had; she’d obviously taken on too much, going there after her visit to Debbie Prince yesterday. She wondered if she ought to tell him about that, but since she didn’t have the energy the dilemma soon faded.

Still sounding upbeat, he said, ‘Are you too tired to call Lily to tell her about Bel’s offer? I reckon she’ll be over the moon, myself, and I know you are. I don’t mind admitting, it’s done you the power of good having a posh friend like that, but I don’t want it giving you airs and graces now, cos we ain’t never going to be in that league, I hope you know that.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, putting a hand on his as he changed gear, ‘I’m happy the way we are.’

Entwining his fingers round hers, he said, ‘That’s what I hoped you’d say.’

They drove on in silence for a while, holding hands when they could, and occasionally glancing at one another. Josie wished she knew what to say, but whatever it was, it couldn’t be the truth, not now when he was so happy to think he wasn’t going to lose her.

‘You know,’ he said as they turned into their street, ‘you being sick and everything, well, it really woke me up to how much you mean to me. I should have known it before, well I did, but something like this, it brings it all home to you, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ she agreed softly, ‘it definitely does that.’

‘
YES, THAT’LL BE
quite acceptable, thank you,’ Bel was saying into the phone as she opened the door to Kristina. ‘Sorry,’ she mouthed, ‘go on through, this won’t take a minute. Yes, yes, I’m still here,’ she told the events organiser at Kesterly Golf Club. ‘You were saying you’re prepared to cover the cost of a marquee, which is what we’d hoped for. And the stationery? Not good enough, you need to cover the cost of that too. I’d appreciate a satisfactory response from your company within the next twenty-four hours, or I’ll start by posting details of this double-booking on your Facebook page, before I send it around Twitter and go to the local press. As I don’t imagine anyone wants that, I’m sure you’ll come back with an agreement to pay for the new stationery
and
postage. Thank you for your time, I’ll wait for your call,’ and clicking off the line she turned to Kristina.

‘Wow, who was that?’ Kristina asked, looking impressed, though as fragile as she’d sounded on the phone.

‘It’s a long story, and a battle I’m determined to win. So, how was the drive?’ Bel asked, dutifully embracing her guest. ‘Would you like a coffee?’

‘That would be lovely, thanks.’ As she unbelted her raincoat Kristina was looking at an open cookbook on the table. ‘Bruce Bogtrotter’s humongous chocolate cake,’ she read out loud.

Bel wondered if she knew anything about Roald Dahl. Had she ever read
Matilda
?

‘Have you made it yet?’ Kristina asked.

‘No, it’s on the agenda for tonight,’ Bel replied. ‘Oscar wants to invite some friends over at the weekend, so it’s supposed to be for them.’

Kristina nodded, and glanced at the paintings magnetised to the fridge as she took the coffee Bel was passing her. ‘You’re so good with them,’ she said, taking her cup to the table. ‘Maybe if I’d tried a bit harder . . .’ She sighed and shook her head.

Feeling for how lost she seemed, Bel said, ‘You mustn’t blame yourself. It hasn’t been easy for anyone.’

Kristina was staring into her coffee. ‘No, it hasn’t,’ she agreed.

She’d lost weight, Bel was thinking as she sat down with her, and her hair and skin had lost their usual lustre. It was impossible not to feel sorry for her when she was clearly far more devastated than Bel had imagined.

‘I need to know,’ Kristina said, bringing her head up and fixing Bel with an imploring stare, ‘if you’re in love with him, because if you are . . .’

‘I’m not,’ Bel came in gently.

Kristina swallowed hard as tears rushed to her eyes.

‘He’s very mixed up,’ Bel said.

‘Aren’t we all?’

‘Have you spoken to him since you left?’ Bel asked.

‘Several times, but I never really get anywhere.’ She took a breath and let it go shakily. ‘One minute he’s saying he still loves me, the next he’s telling me I must get on with my life.’ Her eyes went briefly to Bel’s. ‘That might be easier if I thought there was no hope.’ She swallowed. ‘Do you think there is?’ she whispered.

Having guessed this might be the purpose of the visit, Bel had spent many hours through the night trying to decide how best to advise Kristina in a way that was fair, and didn’t put Bel’s own interests first by asking her to give up the idea of going to Sydney. Though she still wasn’t entirely sure how to do it, she found herself saying, ‘He more or less admitted to me that he loves you, but he’s obviously finding it very difficult to be with you for now. He needs to sort himself out, to deal with his grief, and if you can give him the time, the space, to do that, I think there’s a chance you could pull through.’

Kristina’s eyes closed as her emotions swelled. ‘That’s what he says.’

Relieved she’d hit a right note, Bel said, ‘Did you tell him you were coming here today?’

Kristina nodded.

Surprised, since Nick hadn’t mentioned it when he’d called in to spend some time with the children last night, Bel said, ‘If that’s what he feels, I can’t see there’s a problem, unless you’re not prepared to wait.’

‘No, I am,’ Kristina assured her, ‘or I would be, if I thought it might get us somewhere. The trouble is, he’s never going to be able to take the children away from you, he’s said as much, and if he can’t do that, I just don’t know where, how I’d ever fit in.’

Having feared this, Bel searched for the right words, but she could find nothing to give that Kristina would want to hear.

Kristina was biting her lips, staring down at the mangled tissue in her hand. ‘When he was offered the job in Australia,’ she said, ‘he seemed so excited at first. It was exactly what we needed, he told me, a fresh start, somewhere a long way from the memories so we could make new ones of our own. He thought it would be a great place for the children to grow up, for me to bond with them, but then . . .’ Her voice trailed off, and Bel knew why she didn’t want to go any further.

‘But then he spoke to me?’ she said.

Kristina nodded. ‘He knew it wasn’t going to be easy, breaking it to you, but he didn’t have any idea of the effect it would end up having on him. Neither of us did. He could see you had a point, that it wouldn’t be good to tear the children away from you so soon after losing their mother, and he didn’t want to hurt you either. He was so conflicted, he didn’t know what to do, so he started getting drunk and saying he’d made a terrible mistake, he should never have married me. It wasn’t fair to keep me hanging on, he said, when he’d probably never be able to separate the children from you.’

Feeling utterly wretched for being the cause of so much heartache, Bel wished there was something she could say to defend herself, but no matter what she said, the harsh reality would always remain that she didn’t want to let the children go. But they weren’t hers, and this woman who loved their father, who would do almost anything to try to create a new family for them, was their stepmother. Surely that gave her more rights than an aunt.

‘I don’t know what to tell you,’ she said in the end. ‘I can’t change the bond I have with the children, it was there even before Talia died . . .’

‘Of course, I understand that. You mean the world to them, to Nick too, though he’s obviously horribly muddled about how he really feels about you.’

‘I don’t think he’s in love with me,’ Bel told her.

‘But he feels a loyalty to you, or a connection, or something that he can’t let go of, and until he does . . .’ She turned her head towards the window, as if somewhere in the strange yellowy light threading through the metallic sky were the words she was seeking. ‘I want to ask you,’ she said, ‘if you’ll try to persuade him to take the job in Australia.’

Bel became very still. She hadn’t expected this, or anything like it.

‘I truly believe,’ Kristina turned back to her, ‘that the only way he’ll make the break from you, is if you tell him it’s all right to go.’

Though she didn’t move, Bel’s mind was racing: panic was rushing to shield her from a request she simply couldn’t comply with. Yet she needed to think straight, to make Kristina understand that while she appreciated how important it was for her to save her marriage, it was every bit as important for Bel to have regular access to the children.

‘Will you do it?’ Kristina asked.

Bel swallowed drily as she shook her head. ‘I’m sorry,’ she replied, ‘they’re my sister’s children, my own flesh and blood. I can’t just give them up, nor can I believe it would be good for them to be so far away from me that we’d never see one another.’

Kristina looked away again; her face was pinched, her head tilted up as though to sink back the tears.

‘I’m sorry,’ Bel repeated. ‘I know how much this means to you . . .’

‘Do you?’ Kristina cut in, her eyes bright with the challenge. ‘How can you know what it’s like to lose the man you love, when you’ve never even had a proper relationship?’

Bel flushed hotly.

‘You have no idea how it feels to be where I am,’ Kristina ran on angrily, ‘watching my life falling apart and knowing there’s nothing I can do to save it, apart from beg you to set my family free so they can be mine.’

My family. She was right, they were hers.

But it wasn’t as simple as that.

‘And you have no idea,’ Bel countered, ‘what it’s like to lose a parent the way they have, but this isn’t a contest. I promise you, I do understand how difficult this is for you, and I want to help you get back with Nick, I swear it, but asking me to persuade him to take the children away . . .’ She shook her head helplessly. ‘I just can’t do it. I’m sorry.’

‘If you’d find a man of your own, you might not be so dependent on Nick,’ Kristina cried. ‘You could have children of your own, a life with someone who loves you, a world that belongs to you two and nobody else. Like this, you’re hanging on to what belongs to Talia, and if you ask me, it’s
you
who hasn’t got over losing her, not Nick.’ Her hand went up. ‘OK, he’s still in a bad way over it too, but we both know you’ve got issues that go way back, that have nothing to do with Nick, or the children, but rather than confront them you’re trying to live your sister’s life now instead of your own.’

Stunned, not only by the words, but by the fact that Nick must have told her what had happened in the past, Bel got up from the table and went to pour herself more coffee. Her hand was shaking, she realised, while her mind was still recoiling from the attack.

In the end, Kristina was the first to break the silence. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, dashing a hand through her hair, ‘I shouldn’t have said all that . . .’

‘It’s OK,’ Bel interjected. ‘You’re right in most of what you say, it’s just not very pleasant hearing it.’

Kristina’s eyes were regretful, but ringed with hope as she looked at her.

‘I need some time to think,’ Bel told her, ‘but please don’t leave here imagining that just because you’ve carried out your own amateur analysis on me it’s going to change anything.’

Kristina was about to reply when the telephone rang.

Needing the distraction, Bel snatched it up. It turned out to be the lawyer dealing with the barn. Apparently the farmer had received another offer amounting to seventy thousand more than he’d agreed with her, and wanted to know if she’d care to match it.

‘How can I trust him not to do this again?’ Bel demanded.

‘You can’t.’

‘Then tell him the deal’s off.’

As she put the phone down she took a steadying breath in an effort to stop herself shaking. No barn, no children, no Nick, no Talia, no mother . . . A father she’d rather die than ever see again . . .

‘I should go now,’ Kristina said, reaching for her raincoat. ‘I’m sorry for some of the things . . . I didn’t mean to hurt you, I guess when you’re hurting yourself . . . Will you at least think about what I’ve said?’

Knowing she wouldn’t be able to get it out of her mind, Bel replied, ‘Of course.’

As they walked to the door, Kristina said, ‘Will you call me?’

Bel nodded. ‘When are you driving back?’

‘I’m not sure. If Nick’ll see me maybe I’ll stay with him tonight.’

‘You know,’ Bel couldn’t stop herself saying, ‘neither of you helped the situation by going away so often. If you’d put the children first, and not constantly given them to me to take care of, you might already have a relationship with them.’

‘Your criticism might be more justified if you hadn’t done your best to shut me out from the start,’ Kristina replied.

Accepting she had no defence for that, Bel opened the door, and kept her eyes down as Kristina stepped outside.

‘Time’s not on our side now,’ she said, ‘the job in Sydney won’t be open for ever,’ and pulling her raincoat more tightly around her she went to get into her car.

After waiting for the gates to close, Bel shut the door and leaned against it. It wasn’t so much Kristina’s parting words that were resonating in her mind, though God knew they were there, it was the ones she’d thrown at her about never having been in a proper relationship.

Why was the shame and loneliness of that hurting so deeply now, when she’d never denied, at least to herself and Talia, that she had a problem? Maybe it was knowing that Nick had discussed it with Kristina. Or maybe it was the fact that everything seemed to be slipping away, exposing her for what, or who she really was – a woman who had nothing to feel proud of, and no right to claim anything or anyone as her own.

‘You’re not feeling sorry for yourself, are you?’ Talia asked.

‘Nor for myself, for what I did,’ she replied.

‘You didn’t know it was going to turn out that way.’

It was true, she hadn’t known, could never have known; if only she had.

‘You have to let go of the past.’

‘How can I, when it’s made me who I am?’

‘No, it’s made you afraid, and you don’t need to be any more.’

Bel wanted to believe that so badly.