The Winter Children (29 page)

But Dan stands in her way. Olivia is too stupid to realise the truth, but Dan knows and he isn’t about to let her ease herself into his family unit. He’s made it plain that as far as
he’s concerned, she’s going to be excluded. Unless she finds a way to convince him, but at the moment, she can’t think what that might be.

She wriggles under the covers, hot again and searching for a cool place, then she hears a little babble coming from the children’s room.

They’re up. They’re awake.

She slips out of bed and opens the bedroom door, listening. Yes, they are talking quietly to one another in their high voices, a mixture of words and sing-song sounds.

Such good children. Aren’t they wonderful, just amusing themselves until everyone else wakes up?

It can’t do any harm to play with them. Dan and Olivia will appreciate the lie-in after the late night. She tiptoes downstairs and prepares two beakers of milk, warming them quickly in a
pan of hot water, then returns. When she opens the nursery door, their little faces turn towards her, eyes wide with curiosity. They are sitting in their cots, Bea playing with a soft toy and Stan
with his feet poking out between the bars, watching her.

‘Teska!’ Bea laughs, drops her toy and stands up, holding on to the rail of her cot. She looks adorable in a dotty sleep suit, her soft light hair ruffled into feathery curls, her
cheeks pink with just-woken warmth.

Stan hauls himself up and starts to jump up and down. His sleep suit is stripy and his hair stands up on end like a soft brush. He has spotted the beakers in her hand. ‘Milky, milky,
milky,’ he chirps and holds out a plump hand for his.

‘Here’s your milk, darlings,’ she says. The residual bad mood from last night disappears and she is filled with a sense of completeness, serenity settling on her and happiness
warming her. Everything is right here, with these wonderful little people, these surprising and unexpected gifts. When she made her spur-of-the-moment offer to Dan all that time ago, she
didn’t really believe it would work. She didn’t really want it to. She still thought the best outcome was for Dan and Olivia to be denied parenthood. When he actually accepted the offer
of her eggs, she thought that was the only triumph she needed. She never expected the whole thing to actually happen.

But now, as she holds Bea’s hand and watches her suck on the beaker of milk, and as she ruffles Stan’s swan’s down of hair, she realises that Dan has actually given her peace.
When she’s with these children, she’s happy, as though she’s seen the reason for her own existence, the thing she fought for so hard her entire life. It was for these small people
that she abandoned her family, worked so hard and got to Cambridge. It was for them that she changed everything about herself and created a new person. It was for them that she stayed true to her
love for Dan, despite everything he did to her.

Because in the end, these two little people are the mingling of us, and look . . . look what we made.

She has a fierce impulse to run to him in his bed, to ignore Olivia, and shake him, shouting, ‘Look what we made! It’s come late, we’ve wasted so much time, but look what
we’ve got now!’

Surely he’d start to understand then.

This place and these tiny people are all that’s real and good. Geneva and her life there, the other family . . . it all seems as though that is a dream, a fleeting process she had to go
through to get here, to where she was supposed to be all along.

It’s taken so long. But it’s here now.

Francesca spends a happy hour with the children, taking them out of their cots, getting them dressed and going down with them to the kitchen. She buckles both into their booster seats and makes their breakfasts, mixing up their oaty porridge and adding banana slices and a drizzle of honey. They eat
obediently while she makes herself a cup of coffee. It’s all perfectly innocent but she can’t help getting an illicit thrill from it, as though she is doing something forbidden. She has
never gone quite this far before, taking over the morning routine from Olivia. But she is
helping
. Olivia cooked for them all last night and this is a little thank you. To make her point,
Francesca unloads the dishwasher and tidies away all the dinner things, returning the clean glasses to their cupboard and putting away the serving dishes on the dresser.

All too soon, she hears pattering feet on the staircase and Olivia enters in her nightdress, her expression questioning before her eyes fall on the children with a look of relief. ‘There you all are!’ She goes over to kiss the children. ‘Has Cheska made your breakfast? How nice of her! Delicious banana porridge, yum yum . . .’ She looks over at
Francesca, her smile a little stiff. ‘What time did they wake up? I didn’t hear a thing! We both slept a bit late, I’m afraid.’

‘Don’t worry, it’s fine.’ Francesca smiles back beatifically. ‘They woke quite early but I was already awake myself, so I got them up. I hope you don’t mind. They’ve been terrifically good.’

‘Of course I don’t mind. It’s very kind. You didn’t have to—’

‘It’s my pleasure. Coffee?’ She goes to the jug still warm on the counter and pours a mug for Olivia. When she hands it to her, she sees that Olivia is regarding the children’s clothes.

‘Thank you. Just what I need,’ Olivia says brightly. ‘How nice. You’ve dressed the children in the clothes you brought them. They look very smart.’

‘Don’t they,’ Francesca agrees. She’d noticed that the lovely things she brought from Geneva were carefully put away and not touched. Saved for good, she supposed. But on
a whim, she took them out: a pale yellow dungaree dress over white tights for Bea, and for Stan a blue and white striped top with navy blue dungarees. ‘Do you mind?’

‘Of course not. They’re very lucky to have such nice things. I just hope they don’t make a mess of them, that’s all.’

‘Better that than never wearing them at all,’ remarks Francesca and sips her coffee. There’s a small silence which is filled by the sudden ring of her mobile phone, startling
them both. She looks down and sees Walt’s name on the screen. ‘Oh, excuse me, I’d better answer this.’

Getting up, she takes the phone and wanders out into the hall, glad of her slippers against the cold limestone slabs. ‘Hello, darling.’

‘Frankie? When are you coming home?’

That’s like Walt. Direct and no nonsense.

‘Soon, soon. I’m being kept very busy over here. Olivia is struggling a bit all on her own. She needs me and I’m very happy to help out with the twins. They are so sweet, Walt,
you wouldn’t believe! Both as bright as buttons and incredibly active.’

‘I’m sure they are, Frankie, but we also need you here. Marie-Chantelle keeps coming to Anastasia for orders about how to run the house, and Anastasia has no idea how to do things
and nor do I. As for the children, they’ve been asking why you haven’t been around to Skype them as usual, and Olympia is inundating me with requests for things I have no idea what
she’s talking about . . . and I miss you, you’re not here when I get home. You’ve been gone for too long. We’ve got some dinner parties and engagements coming up, and are
you coming back for those, or what?’

She can hear the resentment in his voice, and she feels a kind of cold contempt that surprises her.

So now perhaps you understand how much you owe me, and how hard I work to keep your life running smoothly. You’ve never had to think about what menus to plan or how to keep our family
ticking over and your social life going. It all just happens, because I do it. You’ve taken me for granted for years. Now you might start to appreciate me.

She keeps her tone soft. ‘I know, honey, it’s a little unusual, but it won’t be for much longer, I promise. Listen, I’ll ring Anastasia today and go through everything
with her. We’ll have a nice long chat about all of it and sort it out. If I can’t make any of the social stuff, I’ll get her to make my excuses. It will be fine, you’ll see.
Maybe you should take Anastasia to the opera do – she’ll enjoy it. Buy her a nice dress to wear and she’ll be in seventh heaven.’

‘Frankie . . .’ Walt sounds puzzled now. ‘What is this? What’s going on? Have you left home and don’t want to tell me?’

She laughs merrily. ‘Of course not, what a funny idea! I’m just so busy, so taken up with everything that needs doing on the house – this planning stage is crucial, you know
that. I’ll be able to be much more hands-off when all that’s behind us. And meanwhile I’ve got the twins to look after. They need me.’

‘Those aren’t your kids, honey,’ Walt says. ‘You don’t have to stay there and look after them; I’m sure Olivia is perfectly capable of doing it on her own.
You’ve got your own, remember?’

She is momentarily stunned into silence, as she recalls that the outside world still believes that the twins are not her children.

‘I’d like you to come home, okay? Go back to the Hall when you’re needed but I don’t want you living there away from us.’

‘You should have thought of that before you bought it, darling,’ she says sweetly. There is a tiny pause as her barb travels over the line to him, and then she says quickly,
‘Actually, there is a reason why I need to be here for just a little longer. I had a builder here and he’s going to be able to make a start on the pool. Mr Howard says we don’t
need to wait for formal permission for that, there’s no concern about the heritage situation. And I thought, well, we may as well get going on whatever we can. So I need to be here to start
proceedings off. Then I’ll come home.’

‘Well . . .’ Walt sounds as though he is trying to be reasonable. ‘Okay. How long will it take?’

‘Only another week,’ she says, her tone placatory. ‘Then I’ll be home.’

‘I hope so, honey. Aren’t the children due some holiday soon?’

‘Oh . . .’ She racks her brain to recall the term dates. ‘Yes . . . half-term. I’ll be back before that, don’t worry.’

‘All right. Another week. I miss you, Frankie.’

‘I miss you too, darling. Now, tell me how work is going.’ She sits down on a hall chair and prepares to listen.

If I have to take it one week at a time, that’s fine with me. But I’d better call that builder today.

Olivia finds she cannot stop staring at the children sitting at the table, dressed in those ridiculous outfits, eating their breakfasts with Francesca sitting there, overseeing everything. The
clothes are nice enough, if far too expensive for what they are, but they’re just not suitable for the twins’ lives. The blue dungarees don’t have poppers so the whole thing needs
to be taken off for nappy changing, and white tights and a pale yellow dress are going to be filthy in about five minutes once Bea gets down on the floor.

Olivia can’t help feeling a stab of anger.
They’re my children. I’ll choose what they’re going to wear.
She likes Bea in trousers – warm and practical
– and she likes the well-worn nature of her nephews’ hand-me-downs that work equally well for both twins. She’s determined not to dress her daughter in pastels and frilly
skirts, and she is quite happy to see Stan in so-called girls’ colours. She proudly dresses him in a shocking pink anorak when they go out.

After breakfast, she says again how nice the children look but as she doesn’t want them to get these lovely clothes dirty, she will go and change them. It’s a relief to see them back in their usual scruffy things.

I mustn’t dwell on it
, she thinks, as she gets dressed herself. Dan is in the shower and the twins are playing on the double bed, half watching as she pulls on her jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a jumper. She can’t remember when she wore anything else. ‘Come on, monsters, let’s go outside and hang out the washing.’

By the time Olivia gets back downstairs, Francesca has gone, leaving the kitchen neat and tidy. As she gets the twins into their jackets, Olivia wonders what the call from Walt was about.
It’s odd, the disconnected nature of Francesca’s marriage. She never mentions Walt, and doesn’t appear to think much about him either. Olivia can’t imagine not being
intimately involved with Dan. If they were apart, she would think about him constantly, and talk to him every day. As it is, there’s a constant stream of communication, even when
they’re together. She sends emails to his computer when he’s working and she doesn’t want to disturb him but needs to flag something up.

Perhaps that’s what Francesca is doing too, but I just can’t see it. They might be messaging all the time for all I know. Perhaps they talk on the phone long into the night while
we’re asleep. And what about her children? When does she ever see or talk to them? Horrible boarding schools, with their enforced separation. It doesn’t seem right. I suppose they
don’t mind it. Maybe there will come a time when I don’t need to see the twins every day, and when my life goes back to being all about me. But it’s hard to imagine it at the moment.

Outside, the air is blustery but warm and the sunshine heats the walled garden, the stones reflecting its rays. The garden is blooming, with all sorts of treats and surprises bursting out
through the soil. She must find the time to investigate properly. And, she reminds herself, she hasn’t looked at the rest of the garden for a while. She is intrigued by the hedges she spotted
and wants to see what shapes they’ve been trimmed into. The children play happily as she pegs out the washing in the same endless ritual, her fingers clumsy with the tiny cold wet socks,
small outfits waving in the breeze like a row of miniature scarecrows.

Her fears of last night when she was lost in the house seem silly now, but a nasty chill creeps over her skin when she thinks of it. Whatever happened, it wasn’t nice. She still finds it
difficult to believe that Dan let Jimmy persuade him to leave her there and hide, but he was drunk and he can be an idiot when he drinks. The atmosphere of schoolboy jape must have been too much to
resist. He was certainly apologetic afterwards, clearly grasping how unpleasant it was to be alone there in the dark. She was mollified. It was all right. He was forgiven.