Another Love (34 page)

‘I think you’re right, David. I just want you to be happy.’ She tried her best to smile.
I guess I knew it was never going to last. I always knew that someone better than me would come along and steal you away.

He nodded.

Her voice, when she found it, had an unmistakeable quiver. ‘I… I would like to see Celeste, but I do understand. I don’t want to push her or scare her or unsettle her in any way. But I really, really would like to see her.’ And then her tears broke their banks, her control was lost and she wept.

*

David’s request swirled through her head as she walked the length of Blackboy Hill and along Whiteladies Road. It was hard for her to imagine him writing messages to another woman, declaring ‘proper love’. She felt diminished. Even during their years of separation, she’d still been his wife, the wife of the beautiful David Arthur Wells. He had picked her! And that had given her some sort of status. But now that was coming to an end. He and his Annie would be a proper couple and Celeste would be part of that and where did that leave her?

Romilly came to a standstill on the pavement and realised that this had already happened. They
were
a unit, and any piece of paper would be a mere formality. She looked across the street to where the sign for The Vittoria pub creaked in the wind; it seemed to be calling her.

She loitered at the bar, looking from the dark-wood furniture and low-hanging lights to the door through which she’d just walked, wondering whether to leave or stay.

‘Yes, love?’ The young man with the goatee beard leant towards her with his eyebrows raised.

‘A double vodka, please.’ She nodded.
Yes, a double vodka.

‘Anything with it?’ He was in a hurry.

‘Orange.’ She averted her eyes guiltily as she searched for her purse.

With the drink in her hand, she made her way to a table in the corner and placed the glass in front of her. Tiny beads of moisture ran down its smooth sides and onto the beer mat. Placing both hands on the cold glass, she tensed her fingers and her jaw, imagining what it might feel like in the next few seconds to place the hard rim against her lip and let the booze flow into her veins. Her stomach hopped and her brain fired shots of ecstasy in anticipation. Her mouth was dry and her hand shook. Raising the glass, she inhaled the scent of the sweet orange and the subtle tang of vodka.

She held it there and closed her eyes. Father Brian’s image came into her head and he was smiling at her.
‘I’ve just provided the tools, but you’ve had to work hard with them and you have and you still are. You are a strong woman.’
She pictured waking with her head next to the bin, the feel of the man’s breath on the nape of her neck. And she thought about her daughter, who was the prize, her reward for staying clean.

Romilly placed the drink back on the table, left the pub and ran. She ran all the way to the Royal West of England Academy, past the Triangle and on to the Wills Memorial building. She panted her way up the steps and stood looking down Park Street. She was smiling and then laughing.

‘I’m winning!’ she shouted at the top of her lungs. Her head was thrown back and her tears fell. ‘I’m winning!’

‘Good for you, love!’ the man in the van hollered back from the line of traffic, just before he pulled away.

I’m going to be okay. I am. I’m going to be okay.
She turned her head and for a second she saw the image of a young woman and a young man, students, standing a little way behind her; they were young and happy and her beautiful long red hair cascaded down her back.

It wasn’t long after receiving her letter that I first saw her again. If I’m being honest, it was a shock. I won’t say I wouldn’t have recognised her, that’s not strictly true, but I was surprised by how much she’d changed. Her skin was yellowy, quite different from the creamy, English-rose complexion with the lovely blush to her cheeks that I remembered. Her eyes were more sunken, her lips were thinner. She looked… She looked like she’d had a really hard time, which of course she had. Her hair was short – again, quite the opposite of how it was in my imagination. Some of her teeth were missing, and the teeth she did have were dark. I felt sad for this woman who, according to my dad and her sisters, had once shone so brightly. I was sad for her and sad for me.

It was an awkward encounter. She wanted to hug me, I could tell. I did give her a small hug, but it felt a bit forced. She sat too close to me and I kept taking little shift to the right to move further away. She touched my hair and it creeped me out a little. I understood her desire to do that, but it didn’t feel comfortable for me. The conversation was just horrible. How do you catch up? How do you exchange information on so many missing years? There’s too much to cover and it felt like too much of an effort, almost like it was easier not to.

And… this makes me sound like a horrible person, and I don’t mean it to, but Dad and Annie and I were so happy that I almost wished Mum hadn’t come back into my life. It was like it was too late, like she was just rocking a very steady, happy boat.

*

I couldn’t wait to get home and talk to Annie. She was amazing about all that. I started opening up to her about Mum and how I felt, and Annie was her usual lovely self. She encouraged me to try and see things from Mum’s perspective, to be more sympathetic. She was almost like a go-between for a bit. The biggest thing, though, was that she made me realise I didn’t have to choose between them, that it wasn’t a question of having either her or Mum in my life. It was possible to have them both.

Romilly trod the path and put the last of her bags into the back of Carrie’s car, slamming the door on the rather bulky load.

‘Promise to call me when you get there. And when you’re settled, your dad and I will be over as soon you give us the nod.’ Her mum fussed in the doorway.

‘I will, Mum.’ She smiled.

‘Flippin’ ’eck, she’s only moving to Bristol, not the other side of the world!’ Carrie tutted.

‘I know. But I’ve got used to having her here.’ Pat was a little tearful. She turned and hollered up the hallway. ‘Lionel, she’s off!’

Lionel came rushing through the house in his slippers. Making his way up the front path, he presented her with an empty ice-cream carton full of ripe red fruit. ‘Some tommyatoes for your new flat.’ He winked.

‘Aww, thanks, Dad!’ She reached up to kiss him.

Quite unexpectedly, he held her close. ‘I am so very, very proud of you, my clever girl.’

‘Well, it’s only an admin job at the museum, but it’s a start.’ She smiled, ever thankful to Dr Mike Gregson for having pulled some strings for her.

‘I wasn’t talking about the job, but it’s the start you deserve, love.’ And he kissed her again.

*

It was now four months since she’d taken the job and she felt happy to be in a routine that she loved. Her little rented flat in the Montpellier district was all she needed. The tiny bedroom, kitchenette, shower room and sitting room had been skilfully constructed above a double garage and was a perfect six hundred and twenty-five square feet. Far from finding it cramped, Romilly considered it cosy. With the addition of a couple of large aspidistras, her stacks of books on entomology, which had nothing to do with Egypt, and the multi-coloured Indian beaded silk throw that hung on the largest wall, the place was bright and interesting.

Switching the light on when she arrived home at the end of her working day filled her with happiness. She would forever be grateful to her lovely mum and dad, who had helped her with her deposit and the first month’s rent to get her started. The flat felt like a safe anchor; after years of rootlessness, this alone gave her a sense of strength and wellbeing. Life was good.

Her boss had been impressed at how much she knew about some of the insect exhibits in the museum and had suggested she might like to give talks to visiting groups. Romilly had beamed; it had been a long time since anyone had given her that kind of responsibility and it felt wonderful. The more talks she gave, the better she got at it, learning what to repeat, what to leave out, until she had it down to a fine art. It was after one such talk, as Romilly was gathering up her prompt cards and stacking chairs, that she noticed a woman loitering at the back of the room, stealing glances at her.

‘Can I help you with anything?’ Romilly smiled at the lean, middle-aged woman with the long dark hair twisted into a loose bun, wondering if she was lost or had a question. The woman walked over and Romilly took note of the jeans, T-shirt, walking boots and tight black zip-up fleece. The two of them studied each other’s faces. Romilly knew what she was going to say before she said it.

‘I’m Annie.’ The woman put out her hand and smiled.

‘Right.’ Romilly studied her angular face and unselfconscious manner. She was make-up free and had made no attempt to hide the few grey hairs that wisped around her forehead, nor to pluck her rather unruly brows.

‘Can I talk to you?’ Annie’s tone was calm and confident. She hitched her rucksack over her shoulder.

The two made their way to the front of the museum and took up seats at either end of the wooden bench by the main entrance.

‘I’ve got half an hour for lunch,’ Romilly pointed out, curling her hair behind her ear and then folding her hands into her lap to stop herself from fidgeting with them.

‘I hope you don’t mind me coming to see you.’

‘It’s fine.’ She didn’t know how to react. The image she’d carried of this woman was very different to the reality. She wasn’t the sexy vamp that she’d pictured but was instead quite homey. A sexy vamp would have been easier to bear, actually; the opposite of her.

‘Celeste said you met up?’ Annie smiled again.

Romilly nodded.

‘It must have been wonderful to see her after all this time.’

‘It was. I was nervous,’ she admitted. She clenched her jaw, annoyed at herself for sharing this with the woman who’d snuck in and taken her place.

‘I can only imagine. I bet you both were.’ Annie smiled again and ran her palm over her face; she seemed to grow prettier the more Romilly looked at her. ‘I think it took a lot of guts. But at the end of the day, you’re her mum.’

Yes. Yes, I am.

‘So…’ Annie slapped her thighs. ‘You must be wondering why I’ve popped up out of nowhere, interrupting your day?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, here’s the thing. I have had the privilege of playing a small part in your daughter’s life over the last few years and I have a bit of inside information that I know David would be crap at handing over.’ She shook her head as if exasperated.

She’d done it. She’d mentioned the man that they both loved, the man that was their common ground and the source of their embarrassment. Romilly stared at her, finding it hard to feel hatred or even the spike of dislike that she might have expected. Instead, it was comfortable, like hearing from a close relative or at least someone who was on your side.

‘So I thought I could fill in your gaps! You can ask me anything and I will try and help you build a picture and it will help you get to know her all over again. What do you think?’

Romilly swallowed the lump in her throat and looked sideways at Annie, still not quite sure what to make of her. ‘Okay’, she whispered.

Annie dipped into her rucksack and pulled out a punnet of strawberries. ‘I thought we could share these.’ She sidled closer to Romilly on the bench and handed her a disposable plastic fork. Peeling back the flimsy plastic lid, she skewered a strawberry and popped it into her mouth.

Romilly cautiously took one too. ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Of course. Fire away, that’s the idea!’ Annie spoke with her mouth full.

‘Why would you want to help me, why would you even want to meet me?’

Annie lowered her fork and considered her response. ‘I’ve wanted to contact you for a while, almost as soon as I started hanging out with David, but I didn’t know how. I wanted to let you know that I’d do my best to be a friend to Celeste and that you weren’t to worry, and that I didn’t want to be any more than her friend.’

She paused and smiled at Romilly. The unspoken words shone brighter than the spoken.
I’m not trying to be her mum; that’s your job. I’m not trying to take your place.
‘I lost my own mum when I was fourteen and I would have given anything to be able to tell her all the things she missed. I know I would have felt more complete had she known all about me.’ She reached over for another strawberry. ‘And in the relatively short time I’ve known your daughter, I can see that she is pretty special and I can’t bear the idea of you missing a scrap of that, just because you were ill.’

Romilly had hated this woman from the moment she’d first heard about her. She’d twisted every snippet of information that had filtered back to her. But now she felt a wave of gratitude towards her, for having thrown her this magical, generous lifeline. She was stumped, genuinely overcome. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘Well, that’s okay. You don’t have to ask me everything today – that might take longer than your half an hour.’ She laughed. ‘But we can do this any time, just meet up and have a natter, if you want.’

Romilly nodded. ‘I do want.’

Annie shoved a vast strawberry into her mouth and spoke around it. ‘You’re not what I expected.’

‘In what way?’

‘I dunno… I guess I thought you might be a bit…’ Annie paused. ‘I don’t know how to phrase it without it sounding harsh.’

‘Oh God, don’t worry about that.’ Romilly shrugged.

Annie took a deep breath. ‘I suppose I thought you might be a bit like the winos you see hanging around the city centre. You know, a bit… grubby, a bit down on their luck. I know that sounds awful, but that’s what I imagined. But you look lovely and you seem very peaceful.’

Romilly couldn’t help but smile at the compliment. ‘I was exactly like those winos for a long time, that’s the scary thing. But I am at peace and it feels good. And for the record, you’re not what I expected either.’