Lost Innocence (3 page)

It was as though someone was living there, or expecting her, but that couldn’t be. The only explanation she could think of was that Robert had decided to take care of the place, or perhaps paid someone else to do it.

Feeling more tension building inside her, she reached for her bag and got out of the car. In the warmth of the July day the scent of damp earth mingling with roses immediately assailed her. Some of it was coming from the hybrid teas that lined the garden path, the rest was wafting over from next door, where Jerry Bright’s prize blooms were as exquisite as any rose could be. He’d installed a new pergola over his front gate, Alicia noticed, which was covered in a vivid pink climber, and next to it was a fancy little free-standing mailbox that his sister, Emily, who lived in one of the waterfront bungalows, had no doubt chosen for him, and probably came to buff up every day.

Alicia walked around the car and went to push open her own gate. Though its hinges creaked, it wasn’t in need of a lick of paint, nor did the paving stones of the path seem particularly troubled by weeds. She gazed up at the old cedar tree that dominated one side of the garden and immediately caught flashes of long-ago picnics in its mighty
shade, and daredevil climbs into its lofty limbs. She could hear echoes of her and Robert laughing as she approached the front door, and her father calling out for them to take care.

She rummaged in her bag for the key. She didn’t really think her mother was inside, but her heart was thumping so hard that her hands were shaking, and in spite of coming this far she still wasn’t entirely sure she had the courage to go in.

‘Alicia! Is that you?’

Starting, she turned round. Across the road, where the stables used to be, was a gaily painted terrace of Victorian cottages, rose pink, sea-foam green, sky blue, primrose yellow, with a row of garages further along towards the river, each one coloured to match the house it belonged to. Coming out of the rose-pink cottage was a plump, curly-haired woman of Alicia’s age, with a cheery smile and noticeable limp.

‘It is you,’ she cried happily. ‘How lovely to see you.’

Alicia started back down the path to greet her. ‘Cathy,’ she said affectionately. ‘It’s lovely to see you too.’

‘I wondered if you might come,’ Cathy said, taking Alicia’s hands and gazing directly into her eyes. ‘When I heard about Craig… I’m so sorry.’

‘Thank you,’ Alicia whispered. Six months on and it still felt like yesterday. She swallowed and tried to sound bright as she said, ‘How are you?’

Cathy’s dark eyes remained mournful pools of compassion. ‘More to the point, how are you?’ she insisted. ‘It must have been a terrible shock. In your shoes, I don’t know what I’d have done.’

Alicia shook her head.

‘How have the children taken it?’

‘Hard, but we’re getting there.’

‘Are they with you? How long are you staying? You know, if there’s anything I can do… Dad’s always at home these days, and I’m only a couple of miles away.’

‘Thank you,’ Alicia said again.

‘Alicia!’ This time the voice was coming from up the street. It was Maggie Cox, landlady of the Traveller’s Rest, and
one of her mother’s oldest friends. ‘As soon as I heard you were here,’ Maggie said, enveloping Alicia in an affectionate hug, ‘I said to Andy, I have to go and see how she is. You know we’re all here for you, don’t you, sweetie? It’s how your mum would want it, so it’s how it’ll be.’

Alicia’s defences were starting to fold. They didn’t know the real truth, they couldn’t, and because they were so kind and loyal she wished she didn’t have to deceive them. ‘How is Andy?’ she asked. ‘The last I heard you two were going to open up a bar in Spain.’

‘Oh, it’ll happen one of these days,’ Maggie assured her, ‘when we have time to get round to it. Cathy, is that your Matthew I can hear crying?’

Cathy cocked an ear. ‘Blimey, it is and all,’ she replied, ‘I’m getting as deaf as our dad,’ and with a hasty squeeze of Alicia’s hands and a reminder of where to find her, she took off back to her father’s rose-pink cottage.

Chuckling, Maggie said, ‘She’s a good girl, that one. Too many kids by half, but her heart’s in the right place.’

‘How many does she have now?’ Alicia asked.

‘Little Matthew’s her fourth. But what about your two? How are they? Bet your Nathan’s turning into a handsome young fellow. How old is he now?’

‘Seventeen.’ The mention of her son softened her, seeming to remove the barbs from her tension.

Putting a hand to Alicia’s cheek, Maggie said, ‘It must have been terrible for you, coming out of the blue like that. When I heard, I said to Andy right then, I wonder if Alicia might come back here. I’m glad you did, my love. We can take care of you, the way your mother would want. I pop over to her grave, you know, every second Sunday, with flowers. Robert does too, when he’s here, but I expect you know that. I said to Andy, they’re probably from all of you, but Robert’s here more, so it makes sense for him to take them on your behalf.’

Realising Maggie was making excuses for her failure to visit her mother’s grave, Alicia felt her cheeks start to burn. ‘I’ll go myself in the next couple of days,’ she assured her.

‘Of course you will. I’ll come with you if you like.’

‘Thank you,’ Alicia said, wondering how many times she had said this since she’d arrived.

At the sound of a car turning into the street they both looked round, and realising who it was, Alicia’s heart gave a beat of pure joy.

Maggie’s eyes were playful. ‘Should have known she’d be here any second,’ she commented. ‘Always were inseparable, you two. Where one was, the other was sure to be found.’

Alicia’s emotions were close to spilling over as a racy-looking Honda pulled up behind her battered Renault. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ she chided, as Rachel came round the car to embrace her, all flushed cheeks, dark shiny bob and crystalline green eyes. ‘How did you know …?’

‘I know everything,’ Rachel informed her, ‘no thanks to you. I’d have been here sooner, but I’m afraid I had to resuscitate a hamster.’

‘Sooner?’ Alicia laughed. ‘Your practice is at least twenty minutes away, and I haven’t been here more than ten. Even the Holly Wood grapevine’s not that good.’

‘Don’t you believe it. I had no fewer than five calls on my way here letting me know you’d hit town, but they weren’t even close to stealing a lead on the one I got an hour ago telling me you were on your way.’

Alicia’s expression turned knowing. ‘Unless Holly Wood has installed its own watchtower,’ she said, ‘I’m guessing you were tipped off by one of my offspring.’

‘Correct,’ Rachel grinned. ‘Hi Mags, sorry to ignore you…’

‘Oh, don’t mind me,’ Maggie interrupted. ‘I’m on my way now. Pop in later, the two of you. Drinks on me.’

‘So why didn’t you tell me yourself you were coming?’ Rachel demanded, treating Alicia to a frank once-over as Maggie trotted back to the pub. ‘You’ve lost weight,’ she told her, ‘and you’re looking a bit peaky, but I guess that’s hardly surprising. I’m sorry I haven’t made it up to London since…’

‘It’s OK. I know how busy you are and I’ve coped.’

Rachel’s eyes were showing her concern. ‘You always do,’ she said, ‘but this time…’

‘This time has been harder, it’s true. There’s more that I haven’t told you about yet. The house …’ As her voice faltered she pressed a hand to her mouth, and Rachel slipped an arm around her.

‘Come on, let’s go inside,’ Rachel said softly. ‘I guess you still have a key.’

Taking a breath, Alicia forced a smile and held it up. ‘I think Robert must have been coming in,’ she said, as they started along the path. ‘The garden’s in such good shape that someone must have been tending it. I feel terrible now that I haven’t been for so long.’

Taking the key from her, Rachel inserted it in the lock and pushed the door wide. ‘Welcome home,’ she said gently.

Swallowing hard on more rising emotion, Alicia braced herself and stepped over the threshold into the spacious, flagstoned hall, where a wide wooden staircase with an intricately carved banister and rails mounted one exposed stone wall, and a large gilt-framed mirror covered the other. The coat rail, telephone table and shoe rack were exactly where they’d always been, as was the burgundy velveteen armchair, the hand-painted oriental vase with long stems of fake bamboo, and the small Victorian chest where the family had always deposited their keys when they came in. What hit her most forcefully, however, was the scent of sandalwood mingled with polish and something citrusy that was indefinably her mother. As the sense of loss welled up in her she closed her eyes and bit down hard on her lip. She knew very well that her mother wasn’t going to rush out of the sitting room to greet her, but she longed for it so much she could almost believe it might happen.

‘Someone’s obviously been coming to clean the place,’ she finally commented.

‘And air it,’ Rachel added.

Alicia continued to look around the hall, hearing echoes of voices, feet thundering on the stairs, music blaring from a bedroom, her mother banging about in the kitchen. All three doors opening off the hall were closed, and she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to go through any of them. The one at the foot of the stairs led into the small waiting room that used to serve her father’s surgery beyond. After his
death it had remained that way for several years until her mother had finally found the heart to turn the wing into a small study for herself, and a large playroom for the grandchildren.

The door at the end of the hall led into the kitchen, but it was the one to the right that Rachel was already opening. Alicia followed her into the sitting room where the low oak beams, inglenook fireplace with wood-burner, window seats, capacious dusky pink sofas and mismatched armchairs were like ghosts from the past simply biding their time, awaiting her return. It felt like a dream, a bizarrely timeless illusion. If she shut her eyes and opened them again she might see her mother kneeling at the hearth polishing her brasses, or plumping up a cushion, or standing at the window tidying the fold of a curtain. The unexpectedness of finding it like this was almost too much to bear. It was as though no time had passed since the awful day she and Robert had taken their mother to the hospice, but it had, and so much else had changed that it was hard to make sense of anything right now.

Rachel moved to stand in front of her, peering curiously into her eyes. Her comical concern brought a smile to Alicia’s pale lips. This was something else that hadn’t changed over the years, thank God, their friendship, and the understanding of one another that often required no words.

Alicia looked around again, taking in the amateurish watercolours she’d painted years ago of the village high street and war memorial; of Glastonbury Tor; the Somerset Levels; Bath Abbey; there was even one of the station at Castle Cary. What on earth had induced her to paint that, she wondered now. And why had her mother kept it? All the paintings she’d produced before leaving home, though, were here somewhere. Monica used to change them around from time to time, but pride of place, over the mantel, had always gone to her favourite, the humpback bridge that crossed the river into Holly Copse. As Alicia looked at it a faraway smile curved her lips. She was drifting back to a time when she’d hardly ever put her paints away. She didn’t even own any now, unless there were some hidden in the
attic. Her artistic efforts were focused on sculpture these days, witty or poignant pieces made of bronze and steel.

Coming to stand beside her, Rachel gazed at the painting too. It was twenty years or more since Alicia had last gone into the Copse, which was actually large enough to qualify as a wood. As young children it was where their father used to take them blackberrying in spring, or picnicking in summer, hunting for conkers in autumn, or collecting pine cones to decorate for Christmas. By night, in their vivid imaginations, it came alive with witches, fairies, hobgoblins, all kinds of terrifying monsters. It was the venue for school nature trails, and later, for teenage rites of passage. Many were the parties they’d attended there, while in the sixth form. Too much booze was regularly consumed, pot was smoked and both she and Rachel had experienced their first grown-up kisses in the nook below the tump known as Lovers’ Dip. A couple of their friends had even lost their virginities there, or so they claimed.

‘Do your children ever go there?’ Alicia asked as Rachel gave a dreamy sigh.

‘Less now than they used to,’ Rachel answered. ‘They’re too old to see it as an adventure any more, and too young for the raves.’

Alicia smiled. Since Rachel and David had waited to start a family their eldest, Una, was the same age as Darcie, and Todd had only recently turned nine. ‘So there are still parties?’ she said, moving on across the room.

‘From what I hear they’ve become one of the must-do events of the region. Apparently kids come from miles around these days. They’ve all got cars or motorbikes or some kind of transport; they even hightail it down from London by train, I’m told.’

With so many public and private schools within a twenty-mile radius of Holly Wood, there would never be a shortage of young people, Alicia was thinking, as she wandered into the dining area and pushed open the door to the kitchen. ‘Shall we have some tea?’ she suggested. ‘Or wine, if you don’t have to go back to work.’

Rachel grimaced. ‘Great idea, but I’m afraid I didn’t bring anything with me.’

‘No problem. I’ve come prepared. It’s all in the car.’

Rachel was suitably impressed. ‘Then what are we waiting for?’ she smiled. ‘Let’s go get the vino. I’ve taken the rest of the day …’ She broke off as the telephone in the hall started to ring. Her eyes met Alicia’s.

‘You answer,’ Alicia said. ‘If it’s Robert tell him…’
Tell him I’ll never speak to him again as long as he’s got that bitch living under his roof.
‘Tell him I’m not here.’

As Rachel started along the hall Alicia turned away. Her eyes were large and glassy and no longer focusing on her surroundings. They were eyes that wanted to forget what they’d seen, to erase the images that haunted them, but never could.