Rumours and Red Roses (17 page)

‘B
UT HIS GRANDFATHER
William is still very much alive, darling. Didn’t Simon tell you?’

Marina had met Becky in town for a quick bite and a chance to catch up with all the news. Marina, who had found herself a new exciting boyfriend – an up-and-coming barrister – had recovered her cheerful demeanour and was positively glowing. After ten frantic minutes they had exhausted talk of the perfect-sounding boyfriend and somehow had got on to the subject of Simon’s grandfather. ‘At least at the last count he was. I would have heard if he had died because my father keeps in contact with Johnny. And I’m sure he would have been mentioned in the obituary column of the local paper.’

Becky picked up her sandwich and pondered the news. She felt odd these days without Samantha in tow but while she was visiting, her mum was making the most of it. She had taken to babysitting with a vengeance, despite her earlier protestations, and had been thrilled to have Samantha to herself for a little while.

‘We haven’t talked about his grandfather very much,’ Becky said, somewhat defensive as she caught Marina’s surprised look. ‘When I think about it, Simon never actually said he was dead. I just assumed and he never said otherwise. Where is he then?’

‘Oh God, I wish I hadn’t said anything now. I feel I’ve just buggered things up with you and Simon. Finding out your husband’s lied to you isn’t so good, is it?’

‘I’m sure he didn’t mean to lie … not as such,’ Becky said,
determined
not to fall into what she felt might be a trap. ‘As I say, we’ve scarcely talked about it.’

‘William
was
in a nursing home over in Lytham.’ Marina opened up
her sandwich and removed the cucumber. ‘I expect the truth is Simon feels guilty about that. I’m afraid he is completely out of it most of the time. Doesn’t know what day it is. Simon took me to see him once, a couple of years ago. I knew him when I was a little girl. He smelled of soap. Does Simon?’

‘What?’

‘Smell of the laundry?’

Becky laughed. ‘No. He isn’t in the laundry much. He’s too caught up in admin. I wonder if Simon doesn’t want me to see him, his
grandfather
. But …’ She hesitated. ‘Maybe he didn’t want to upset me if he’s as ill as you say but it doesn’t seem fair that he hasn’t seen Samantha. I mean, it might help him. He should see her, don’t you think?’

‘Absolutely. I think it’s a terrific idea. Plonk Samantha on his knee and tell him she’s his great granddaughter and you never know. It might nudge his memory back into gear for a while. Isn’t it sad? When you lose your memory, what have you got left? Mind you, there are some things you don’t particularly want to remember, aren’t there?’

‘Yes. I have some of those,’ Becky told her thoughtfully. ‘You wish you could forget and you do for a while and then something reminds you and they come thudding back. As clear as crystal at that.’

‘Don’t they just?’ Marina eyed her suspiciously. ‘I can feel a secret coming out. Come on, what is it?’

‘I don’t usually tell people this but there is something I can’t get out of my head and I wish I could.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’ She twiddled her cutlery, looking across the café to where a woman with a baby had just settled at an adjoining table. The baby was sitting on her mother’s knee, a child with podgy cheeks and a mere fluff of hair, not half as pretty as Samantha.

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Becky, you can’t leave me in suspense.’

‘Well … I lost some of my friends when I was a teenager. They were all killed in a car accident,’ she said, hearing Marina’s sharp intake of breath. ‘It was all over the papers. I was the only one to survive. I was alone in the car with them for a while before they came to get me. I seem to have shut out the worst of it and it was just as well I couldn’t see Gerry and Dave in the front. Some bright spark told me later what happened to the pair of them. But I did see my friend Janet. She ended up on top of me and was just staring at me with her eyes open. There
wasn’t a scratch on her, not that I could see. And Paul, our friend Paul …’ She pulled up, the memory sharp. ‘He was next to me and he was alive at first. He kept on moaning and asking for his mum and I told him it would be all right. But it wasn’t.’

‘Oh, my God. Becky! You poor girl.’ Marina stopped chewing and put her roll down on the plate. ‘Do you want to talk about it? Marina’s listening.’

‘Can we get out of here?’ she asked, the clatter and stuffiness suddenly getting to her.

‘Sure. Lousy sandwich anyway. Out you go and I’ll pay and then we can have a walk and you can tell me all about it, darling.’

‘Afterwards, they sent me for bereavement counselling.’

‘That’s what they do.’ Marina nodded, carefully non-committal. ‘Did it help?’

‘No. Not much. And my mum was in such a state, she wasn’t much help either. I keep asking myself why was I saved when the others all died.’

They were back in the pleasant little square near Becky’s apartment. It was a lovely day and it seemed a shame to be indoors.

‘People always ask that,’ Marina said firmly. ‘It’s the guilt. Just think, if your friend Janet had lived, she would be asking precisely the same question.’

‘It was never the same at school afterwards. How could it be? The football team lost its three best players and there were empty chairs, reminders all around. If it had been just one it would have been bad enough but five … five was unbelievable. It affected everybody in the school but me most of all. I think that’s the real reason why I didn’t stay on. I could have. Mum would have come round to the idea and the teachers would have been delighted.’

‘You just wanted to get away so that you wouldn’t be reminded of them every single day?’

‘Exactly. And then I played the what-if game. What if I hadn’t gone to that party that night? What if Janet decided not to go if I didn’t go? What if Gerry hadn’t passed his test and wanted to show off?’

‘We can all play that game. What if my mother had never met her new lover? What if she had told him to get lost, she had a family to care for? What if she hadn’t been so bloody selfish? I hate her for it, Becky,
and then I hate myself for hating her. You can’t win. We’re all of us shrouded in guilt about one thing or another.’

‘I’m sorry, Marina. I’m being selfish talking about me all the time. You must have gone through so much when your mother left you.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. We’re tough as a family. We have to be. But that’s why I’m so fussy about men. Speaking of men, I do think Phil’s the one for me,’ she said, her face suddenly flooding with colour. ‘But I’m not going to hang about, Becky, doing nothing, waiting for him to propose. It’s time I got my finger out. I’ve got to get a job, something that matters to me. I have to prove I can do it. If you hear of anything, let me know. I’ve no qualifications to speak of but I can turn my hand to anything.’ 

B
ECKY PICKED HER
moment to confront him.

It was a bit difficult having a private conversation with her mum staying with them – the only time they were alone was when they were in bed and she didn’t want to talk about this in bed. Fortunately, Shelley was meeting up with an old friend, leaving them to enjoy a quiet dinner together. Samantha had been restless at bedtime and had taken some time to settle off but at last she had fallen asleep.

Simon was half asleep in a chair and, across the room, a TV soap character was babbling incoherently on the screen.

Becky picked up the remote and switched it off.

‘Hey …’ Instantly, he was awake. ‘I was watching that.’

‘No, you weren’t,’ she said with a smile. ‘I want to talk to you anyway.’

‘That sounds ominous.’ He drew himself up, rubbing at his
shoulders
. ‘Something wrong? Is your mum OK?’

‘Oh yes, she’s fine,’ she said. ‘I had lunch with Marina the other day.’

‘I hear she’s got a new boyfriend.’

‘She has. He sounds nice. But the thing is she dropped a bit of a clanger about us. About the family.’

‘What? What has she been saying?’ he asked, a wary look passing over his face. ‘Discretion isn’t one of her strong points.’

‘Don’t I know it?’ Becky said, remembering the conversation in the hall of Marina’s flat on the night they met. ‘She tells me that your
grandfather
William is still alive. It made me feel such a fool. I thought he was dead and you never said otherwise, Simon.’

‘Oh, that. I was going to get round to telling you.’

‘Then it is true?’

‘Yes.’ He pulled a face. ‘Sorry. I was going to tell you.’

‘When? I would like to meet him and don’t you think your
grandfather
has a right to see his great grandchild?’ She hadn’t meant it to sound confrontational but it came out like that.

‘Of course he has. It’s not like that.’

‘What do you mean? What is it like? You weren’t trying to keep it from me deliberately, were you? I would have liked to know, Simon. I have a right to know. You are so lucky. I don’t have a father, let alone a grandfather. I never knew either of mine.’

‘I honestly don’t know why I didn’t tell you. I meant to. It’s just never come up. Dad doesn’t like to talk about it and Mum’s none too keen either.’

‘I have noticed,’ she said, remembering how, if it had come up, mention of the past, the subject was very adroitly changed. ‘Come to think of it, there aren’t any pictures around her house, are there? Family pictures. Why not?’

‘It’s a long story. It goes back a long way. There’s been a family rift. My father hasn’t spoken to his dad for years, not after it happened. There was a bit of trouble and dad’s mum, my granny Isabel …’ He shook his head. ‘There was a scandal. You don’t want to know.’

‘Try me,’ she said, feeling more and more infuriated. ‘Why aren’t there any photographs of
her
? Oh, come on, Simon, this is ridiculous.’

‘I do have a few photographs somewhere, a few I rescued. I’ll root them out for you if it bothers you that much,’ he said, his face
tightening
so that he suddenly looked quite different. ‘But, bloody hell, Rebecca, I don’t know why you’re getting into such a state about it.’

‘I’m not in a state. Just curious, that’s all,’ she said as he jumped up and went into his study. She could hear drawers opening and closing, a few low curses.

He rarely swore, which made it doubly shocking.

She must have really upset him.

Afterwards, after she had looked at the meagre collection of
photographs
, she decided she would let it rest a while before tackling the subject again. But the next day something happened that brought it all up again and she vowed to have it out with him that night.

‘According to Adele’s grandmother Chrissie,
your
grandmother was an interesting lady. A red-head. Isn’t that a surprise? Tall and elegant, she
says, and half-Scottish. Isn’t it just great that a complete stranger knows more about her than I do? What does that make me look like?’

‘
Chrissie
?’ He picked up on her use of the Christian name which, surprisingly, Adele’s gran had insisted she use. ‘When did you meet her?’

‘Today. By accident,’ she said as he stared at her. ‘And there’s no need to look at me like that, Simon. I’d met up with Adele to do a bit of shopping, if you must know. We had the children with us and bumped into her grandmother in town. It was just as well we did. She had sneaked off, she said, without telling Adele’s mother where she was going. She had taken a taxi into town.’ She frowned as she recalled Chrissie’s tired face. ‘She had been all the way down the park to look at her old home. Isn’t that sad? They’re turning it into a children’s nursery and they’ve ripped out the front garden to make a car park. That really knocked her for six because there were some beautiful roses in the garden and they had just dug them up and tossed them aside. As a matter of fact, I think she was beginning to realize that she’d taken on too much by walking so far. She looked very shaky so what could I do but bring her back here for a cup of tea to revive her before Adele took her home? It seemed ridiculous to take her to a café when we live in the centre of town. You don’t object to that, do you?’ she asked sharply, not liking his mood of the past few days.

‘No, of course not. Sorry. Bring whoever you like here. What is she like?’

‘She’s a fascinating lady. After Adele introduced me, she asked if we were related to Bell’s Laundry …’ She smiled a little. ‘And when I told her yes we were, that’s when she said she was acquainted with the family. She mentioned Isabel. She was right,’ she added, taking another look at the sepia photograph she had stashed away in her handbag. ‘She was a very good-looking woman. You can’t see the colour of her hair in this photo but, you know, sometimes Samantha’s hair has a reddish tinge to it in a certain light. Perhaps she takes after her.’

‘I hope not,’ Simon said bluntly.

‘This would look lovely in a frame,’ Becky said, holding it against her chest, indignant on Isabel’s behalf at Simon’s reaction. ‘I shall display it if Esther won’t. I’ll speak to her.’

‘Don’t do that yet,’ he said. ‘Not until I’ve spoken to her.’

‘For heaven’s sake …’ She shut up at that point, reluctant to have a full-blown row for she and Simon did not do rows but it was close to
heading that way. It was as if the family just wanted to forget about William and she didn’t like that at all. They couldn’t possibly be ashamed of him, could they? When they first met, Simon had talked about him proudly, she recalled, about how he started up the business from nothing, so what could have happened in the past to cause a
nonspeaking
situation between Johnny and his father? She would not dream of asking Johnny because, deliberately after what had happened to her mother, she avoided one-to-one situations. Not that he would make a play for her, his daughter-in-law, but she was uncomfortable with him. According to Marina, William was ill, had a distressing illness, and the family couldn’t do this, shut him away like this, stick him in a nursing home, ignore him, as if he was a leper.

‘He’s got a form of Alzheimer’s. He’s very rarely lucid these days. It’s not as if he knows what’s what so it would be a dead loss visiting,’ Simon persisted although she saw that he looked guilty as hell. Marina was right. We all suffer from it in one way or another.

‘Does
anybody
go to see him?’

‘No. And don’t look like that. It’s just upsetting all round.’

‘I don’t care. Upsetting or not, I want to take Samantha. Marina says to plonk her on his knee and it might unlock all the memories. If it cheers him up, even for a little bit, it will be worth it. And I would like to see him too.’

‘All right, Rebecca. I’ll take you. Hang on …’ He whisked his diary out and consulted it whilst she frowned. What could be more important than this? ‘We’ll go over on Sunday, the 16th. OK?’

‘Fine by me,’ she said, still feeling irritated and annoyed that this was causing friction between them.

Simon put the diary away, managing a rueful smile at last and a murmured sorry. ‘But be warned,’ he added. ‘It won’t be easy.’