The Four of Us (41 page)

For several seconds Geraldine couldn't move. The enormity of what Primmie was telling her was just too great. Her pulse beats roared in her ears.

‘Simon Lane?' she said, reading the answer in Primmie's eyes. ‘Oh, Primmie! Oh, darling, darling Primmie.'

Swiftly she crossed to the bed, sitting down at Primmie's side, taking hold of one of Primmie's hands. ‘Why didn't you tell me?' she asked, more deeply moved than she'd thought herself capable of being. ‘I had no idea. Did anyone else know?'

The realization that Primmie had had Kiki's father's baby was so staggering even her orderly mind boggled at the possible emotional fallout. The baby had been Kiki's half-sister. How on earth had Kiki felt about it? And how had she felt about Artemis adopting her? More incredible still, just why hadn't Simon Lane been more supportive to Primmie? He'd had money. Primmie needn't have faced financial difficulties as a single parent. Kiki's name wasn't one she'd wanted to bring up, but she did so now. ‘Kiki,' she said. ‘Did Kiki know?'

Primmie shook her head. ‘No. No one knew. Not even Simon. And I couldn't tell you, Geraldine. You'd gone to Paris. I had no address for you, no telephone number.'

Geraldine winced, well aware of how selfishly she'd cut herself off from everyone in the aftermath of Francis's desertion and Kiki's betrayal. ‘I'm sorry,' she said inadequately. ‘Oh God, Primmie. I'm so sorry.'

Primmie squeezed her hand. ‘You don't have to be sorry, Geraldine. You had heartache of your own, and though it was never easy for me, living on my own without Destiny, I always had the comfort of knowing that Artemis loved her with all her heart and I knew lots of other things that were a comfort. I knew what her bedroom looked like. I knew what the garden looked like and so I could easily imagine her playing in it. I'd patted and stroked the pony Rupert and Artemis had bought for her. In the first year or two I met Artemis regularly for lunch and she would bring me photographs of Destiny and tell me what she was doing and how she was progressing. I wasn't completely cut off from her.'

‘But you didn't see her?'

Primmie shook her head. ‘No,' she said, her voice bleak. ‘All the adoption advice given to Artemis and Rupert was against it. Artemis would have disregarded it. She wanted me to be a part of Destiny's life, for Destiny to regard me as a much-loved auntie, but Rupert couldn't cope with being constantly reminded that Destiny wasn't his. He put an end to the regular lunch meetings I had with Artemis. And then …'

She paused, taking a deep breath. ‘And then Destiny drowned in the pool at Rupert and Artemis's villa in Spain. And neither I nor Artemis was at her funeral. Artemis was in hospital in England, recovering from a serious car accident, and Rupert didn't contact me about the funeral arrangements. Quite simply, he wouldn't have wanted me there. She was his little girl and I suppose at such a terrible time for him he didn't want reminding that she was adopted.'

They were silent. Through the window they could see a brassy blue sky and seagulls wheeling. After a little while, Geraldine said gently, ‘And what about your other children, Primmie? It said on the website that you had four. Are any of them married? Do you have grandchildren?'

Primmie unclasped her hands and wiped the tears from her cheeks. ‘Two of them are married, Joanne and Millie. I don't have any grandchildren, though. Not yet.'

‘And the other two? What do they think of this adventure of yours into Cornish country living?'

Primmie managed a smile. ‘Josh and Lucy? I'm not sure what Josh thinks. He's every inch a south-Londoner and I doubt he truly knows just whereabouts Cornwall is. Lucy is a world traveller. At the moment she's in Australia, but I'm hoping she'll be back in England soon. And when she is, she'll stay here and she'll love it, though I doubt she'll stay for long – staying in one place for any length of time isn't Lucy's style.'

She took hold of Geraldine's hand. ‘And you'll stay here as well, won't you, Geraldine? And next year, when I'm really organized, will you stay for the whole of the summer?'

Geraldine slid an arm round Primmie's shoulders and pulled her close so that Primmie's head was against her shoulder and Primmie couldn't see into her eyes. ‘I'm not in a position to make plans for next summer, Primmie,' she said. ‘But I'd like to stay here now. I'd like to stay here for a couple of months, if it's all right with you.'

‘Of course it's all right with me! It's more than I could have ever hoped for! There are the children arriving in ten days'time, though. It doesn't matter about rooms, because there are three guest rooms, but perhaps you won't want to be here when the place is full of children?'

She pulled away from Geraldine a fraction so that she could look into her face.

Geraldine grinned. ‘Of course I'll want to be here. After some of my work experience of the last thirty years, children should be a doddle.'

Primmie grinned back at her, wondering just what kind of work Geraldine had done. She would ask later. For the moment, all that mattered was that Geraldine was back in her life – and was going to stay back in her life.

‘I missed you, Geraldine,' she said thickly. ‘You'll never know how much.'

Geraldine smiled and pulled her close again. ‘If it's half as much as I missed you, Primmie, then I do,' she said, and kissed Primmie's hair, regretting to the very depths of her being all the years of friendship she had so foolishly wasted.

Wearing black leather trousers, a turquoise T-shirt emblazoned with a sequinned panorama of Las Vegas and a black leather jacket, Kiki stood at the door of her flat, saying goodbye to it. It was an absolute tip. For the last six weeks, ever since her catastrophic Grantley gig, she'd done very little but hole up in it, drinking heavily, mulling over the greatest decision of her life – whether or not she was going to end it.

In retrospect she knew she should have driven away from Grantley the minute suicide first entered her mind and committed the dreadful deed there and then. After all, what was the alternative? Now it had finally permeated her thick skull that, apart from a few brief glory days in the late seventies and early eighties, she had never ever been a major rock star – and that she was most definitely now never going to become one – what was there left to live for? Looking round her uncared-for flat, the answer was ‘bloody little'.

With her head pounding from her mammoth vodka binge and her body feeling as if it had been run over by a truck, she slung her bag and laptop on the back seat of her clapped-out Fiat Uno, eyeing the car with loathing. Even just being seen behind its wheel robbed her of all self-respect and self-esteem. It was bad enough no longer being a star, but without some remnants of a star's lifestyle, she couldn't even enjoy living on reputation.

And she no longer had rock-star dosh. Though she still received royalties from the songs she had written with Geraldine, it wasn't enough to support her in the style people expected. There was no pleasure in having people recognize her – which they still did – if they then immediately became aware that she was virtually impoverished. Every time it happened, the humiliation was so great she didn't know how she survived it.

Nauseously she slid behind the wheel and turned the key in the ignition. Lots of other old rock stars that she knew had carved out new careers for themselves in other aspects of the music business: management or production. She'd never attempted either. Being behind the scenes hadn't been what she'd wanted. Being up front and having all eyes on her had been what she'd wanted.

As she surged away from the kerb, she realized that she was already thinking in the past tense. Well, so be it. She wasn't going to endure another two or three decades as a has-been as clapped out as her car. There was such a thing as having a rag of pride. It would have been different, of course, if she'd had the sense to have married money – the kind of money that would have enabled her to still hold her head high – but the idea of marriage had never appealed to her. It was too tying. Too conventional. Too boring. She'd always had a masculine attitude to sex, liking a lot of variety with little commitment. She'd felt it went with her job description. Where it had left her, of course, was alone.

Grim faced she pulled out on to the North Circular. Despite all the rock paraphernalia of endless parties, when it came to the bottom line, she'd always been alone – or she had been ever since she'd moved out of the Kensington flat she'd shared with Primmie, Artemis and Geraldine – and that was so long ago it seemed to have been in another lifetime.

It suddenly occurred to her that she had no road map in the car and that the last time she'd been to Cornwall she'd been driven there. She shrugged her shoulders. Cornwall was west and was big.

It couldn't be that hard to find.

Primmie and Geraldine were seated on a garden bench looking out over Ruthven's overgrown flower garden towards the sea.

‘You could make a patio here,' Geraldine said, a plate of buttered toast balanced on her knee, a mug of tea cupped in her hands.

‘I could – when I have the time. Lack of time is why the flower garden is so overgrown. I'm aiming at self-sufficiency and so the vegetable garden has been my first priority.'

‘And what are you growing?' Geraldine had abandoned her highly unsuitable white linen suit and was dressed a little more appropriately for her surroundings in a shirt, slacks and flat shoes. That the peach-coloured shirt was Chanel, the cream slacks Armani and the cinnamon leather shoes Gucci ensured she still looked a million dollars.

‘Spinach, carrots, lettuce, celery, leeks, onions, cabbages, potatoes – and kale, for Maybelline.'

‘And what do you do with it all? You surely can't eat it all. You'd be as big as the house!'

Primmie giggled. ‘I'm getting on that way. This skirt is a size sixteen. The first size sixteen I've ever had to buy.'

Geraldine regarded the shapeless pleated garment in question. ‘And where did it come from?' she asked quizzically, a throb of laughter in her voice. ‘British Home Stores?'

‘The local Oxfam in Calleloe. As for what I do with my surplus veg – do you remember Peggy asking you to ask me if I'd exchange some eggs for mulberries? That's because amongst local people produce is used as currency. Matt lives in a traditional fisherman's cottage and the garden is too tiny for him to raise many veg, so when he worked on the cowshed, making it habitable for Maybelline, I repaid him with whatever was cropping from what Amelia had sown last year. I'm also starting to bottle and pickle things and I'm thinking of putting a little stall and an honesty box at the end of the track, where it meets the road. That way I'll be able to make a profit from whatever excess I have.'

‘And what about the milk? Are you going to carry a pole across your shoulders with milk pails hanging from either end and go door to door?'

Primmie's shoulders shook with laughter. ‘No, I'm not. I don't know much about selling surplus milk, but I think it's a bit tricky if it hasn't been pasteurized. There's someone called a dairying officer who keeps an eye on things like that. He came round to inspect the cow shed and to make sure I was cleaning the dunging passage every day and not letting dung build up in it.'

‘The dunging passage?' Geraldine could hardly keep her voice steady. ‘I dread asking this, Primmie, but is that a part of the shed or a part of Maybelline?'

Primmie gurgled with laughter. ‘It's a part of the shed. I'll show you this evening, when I next milk her.'

‘And you've already milked her this morning?'

‘I have. You were still asleep and so I didn't disturb you. Milking her is very restful. I love doing it. I sit beside her on a little stool and rest my forehead against her warm flank and she's all soft and velvety and delicious smelling.'

Geraldine's expression was so comic, Primmie, more supremely happy than she'd been since Ted died, giggled again. Having Geraldine with her made her feel young again. Everything, even the most mundane things, was fun. She drank the last of her tea and said, ‘Shall we to try to get in touch with Artemis? I have an old telephone number for her.'

‘Yes, and if you have a telephone number for her, why haven't the two of you kept in touch?' She hesitated and then said gently, ‘Is it because of what happened to Destiny?'

Primmie's giggles died. ‘I think Artemis felt guilty,' she said at last, slowly. ‘Guilty that she hadn't ensured Destiny had a responsible, fully trained nanny with her when Rupert took her to Spain. And I felt …' she made a despairing movement with her hand. ‘I felt too many things. I didn't want to share my grief with anyone. Not even Artemis.'

‘And now?'

‘And now it wouldn't be an issue. I still grieve for Destiny. I'll always grieve for her, but I'm no longer frightened of harbouring feelings of blame towards Artemis for her death. In loving Destiny, Artemis and I shared something wonderfully precious. I'd love to see her again. I'd love it if we could persuade her to come down here, whilst you're still here. It would be just like old times again.'

‘Except that Kiki wouldn't be with us.' Geraldine's voice was suddenly abrupt. ‘That's one reunion I don't want to have, Primmie. Telephone Artemis. I, too, would absolutely love to see her again. But Kiki is a no-go area. Sorry.'

Primmie remained silent. There was a lot she wanted to say to Geraldine about Kiki – and a lot of questions she wanted to ask about Francis – but now was not the time.

‘I'm going to telephone Artemis now,' she said, rising to her feet. ‘What do you bet she shrieks with disbelief when I tell her I'm living on a smallholding in Cornwall and that you're staying with me?'