At Home With The Templetons (38 page)

I understand from Gracie that Henry is in America again. Was there anything important you needed to talk to him about?

Nina let a day lapse before she wrote back. No, she said. There was nothing she needed to say to Henry.

‘And that was it?’ Hilary asked. ‘You never heard from him again?’

Nina stood up and shook her head. ‘So maybe now you’ll see why I’m not wild about the idea of Gracie and Tom being a couple.’ ‘But you can’t tar her with his brush. You always said Henry had charm to burn, that he could coax the birds from the trees. He’s obviously just one of those kinds of men.’

‘But I’m not one of those kinds of women.’ Her raised tone surprised them both. ‘How dare he, Hilary? How dare he come crashing into my life, say all those things to me, and then just leave, never get in touch with me again?’

‘Nina, I’m sorry, but men have been doing that to women for years.’

‘Not to me, Hilary. Not to me.’

‘Look, I’m so sorry you still feel hurt about it ‘

‘I’m not hurt any more. I’m angry about it. I’m furious about

it.’

‘I understand that, but you can’t let it influence how you feel about Gracie and Tom.’ ‘Why can’t I? Why would I want my son to get mixed up with that family again? They can’t be trusted, any of them. They said they were leaving here for three months. How long has it been? Eight years? Leaving me in the lurch, cleaning up their messes ,

‘You’ve never been in the lurch. You’ve often said yourself how well it worked out ‘

‘Not any more. It’s time I started thinking about leaving. Time the Templetons faced up to a few realities about the way they treat people.’

‘Nina, just because Henry ‘

‘Because Henry what? Screwed me, literally and metaphorically? Took me for a complete fool? I told you the first time I met them that they were bad news. I should have trusted my judgement then, Hilary. Had nothing to do with them.’

‘Nina, you’re overreacting ‘

‘I’m not. They’re bad news, Hilary. The whole family. All of them, selfish, self-centred. I should have seen it long before now. And I swear to God, Hilary, if anything bad happens between Gracie and Tom, if she breaks his heart, if she hurts him in any way, I’ll ‘

‘You’ll what?’

Nina was silent for a moment. ‘I’ll never forgive her.’

Gracie could tell Spencer was in one of his reckless moods from the moment she and Tom met him at the railway station in Rome. She wasn’t surprised when he produced a bag of dope out of his pocket and

rolled it into a joint as they drove through the labyrinthine Rome streets, making their way out to the small villa apartment in the hills north of the city that she and Tom had rented cheaply.

‘Gracie? Tom?’ he’d offered. They both said no. ‘Great. More for me.’

It was fun at first. They went sightseeing, sunbathed, listened to music, had long lunches, spent hours deciding where to eat each night. On the fourth evening, Spencer’s final night with them, it was Gracie who chose the restaurant. She’d read about it in a guidebook. It was outside Rome, along a stretch of twisting country roads, apparently one of the region’s best-kept secrets.

‘A best-kept secret printed in a guidebook?’ Tom said. ‘Wow, that is secretive.’

The evening started well, the three of them having fun, laughing, being entertained once again by Spencer’s stories. Until he started ordering shots of different liqueurs: grappa; limoncello; sambuca. Gracie bowed out, having volunteered to be the driver. She was surprised when Tom kept going, meeting Spencer drink for drink for the next two rounds.

‘Good for you, Tom,’ Spencer said, raising his glass. ‘To the final days of our carefree youth.’

‘He’s a bad influence on you,’ she tried to joke, when Spencer left to go to the bar again.

‘These are my last days of freedom, Gracie. Spencer’s right.’ Her feeling of unease grew from that moment. The night took on a different mood. She felt one step behind them both. They seemed to be talking too loudly, laughing too much, while she grew quieter. She wanted Tom to notice, wanted him to do what he’d done that time in London, take her away so it was just the two of them, not the three of them, her on the sidelines.

She was the one who called a halt, as Spencer stood to buy another round, the fourth or was it their fifth? ‘No, Spencer. We have to go. Now.’ She went to the bathroom to escape the taunting that she knew would come, Spencer calling her a spoilsport, a killjoy.

When she came back, he was gone. Tom was standing by the front door, looking out over the dark hills and valleys, the lights of Rome visible as a distant haze.

‘Where is he?’

‘Waiting in the car in a sulk.’

‘You’re not mad at me too, are you?’

Tom leaned down, kissed the top of her head. ‘Mad at you? At my Gracie? Never.’

Spencer was in the driver’s seat when she and Tom got there. The door was open, the engine revving. ‘Sporty little number,’ he called across.

She stood by the door. ‘Get out, Spencer. You’re too drunk to drive.’

‘I’m not. I’m sober as a judge.’ ‘Get out.’

Spencer held up his hands in surrender. ‘Jesus, Gracie. What’s happened to you? Tom, how do you stand it? It must be like dating a fishwife. God help you if this lasts between you. You’re young, Tom. You should be carefree like me, not having someone nipping at your heels every minute like her.’

That stung Gracie. That was too close to the bone, too close to how she’d been feeling all night. ‘Fine,’ she said, too loudly. ‘You drive, Spencer. You get us home.’

‘Gracie, relax,’ Tom said. ‘Don’t listen to him. He’s drunk.’ ‘I am drunk,’ Spencer said. ‘You are drunk. We are all drunk. Do you think I could teach English?’

‘Get out, Spencer,’ Gracie snapped. ‘Give me the keys and get out.’

There was a dance between Spencer and Tom then, exaggerated politeness, each opening a car door for each other. Gracie sat upright in the driver’s seat, furious, wanting to ignore them, wanting her brother to go away. Eventually they took their seats, Tom in the front beside her, her brother in the back.

As she slowly drove the car down the restaurant’s driveway, then indicated left, Spencer started singing ‘That’s Amore’ in an exaggerated comic opera voice.

Tom joined in. She stayed silent, concentrating on driving on the right-hand side. Their apartment was only a few kilometres away. The road ahead was dark. That was one good thing about staying this far out in the countryside. They had the road to themselves.

Tom and Spencer kept singing, both of them trying to make each other laugh with exaggerated operatic flourishes, building up to a crescendo. ‘That’s amore …’

As Spencer sang too loudly right behind her, he started tugging at her plait, deliberately trying to annoy her. She ignored it the first time, just reached back and swatted his hand away. Moments later he did it again. She tried to swat him away again. ‘Stop it, Spencer. It’s not funny.’ The third time he did it, still singing, pulling even harder on her plait, her anger was like a hot rush inside. She spun around to shout at him. ‘I told you, Spencer. Stop it!’

Their song was still in her head when she woke up the next morning in the hospital. She remembered a shout, from Tom or was it Spencer? ‘Gracie, look out!’ The lights of a truck appearing over the hill, headed right towards them. The sound of a horn. Screeching. Their brakes, the truck’s brakes. Then feeling took over from sound. The moment of impact, slow, slow at first, and then everything turned into fast motion, as she jerked forward, the seatbelt like a whip across her chest, holding her, her neck twisting, her chest hitting against the wheel, falling back, the car all motion, wrong motion, filled with sound, more screeches and bangs and shouting, her shouting, Spencer’s shouting. Tom’s silence.

For just a few seconds, everything was quiet, deathly quiet, but there was still movement, their car still seemed to be moving, and she was dizzy with it. What had happened? She sat up, somehow, touched her head, felt liquid. Blood. Everything was dark. She heard whimpering. Was it her? Tom? Spencer?

She said their names over and again. She was sure she said their names, but there was no sound in return. Was she dead? Had she died? Were they all dead?

‘Gracie, are you all right?’

The voice came from behind her. Spencer. Still no sound from Tom.

‘We’ve had a crash,’ Spencer said. The

stupidest, most obvious thing in the world to say.

‘We need to get out,’ she said. She could smell petrol. The car was going to explode.

Tom’s body was slumped away from her, against his door. She had to get him out now. Quickly. She somehow got her door open, feeling a sharp pain in her chest as she leaned forward, a worse, tearing pain in her ankle as she got out. She kept moving. She had to get Tom out. She fell, got up again, another blast of pain. She heard crying, panting, and realised it was coming from her.

The truck driver was getting out of his cabin. He was walking. His head was bleeding, but he was moving. He was shouting at them, shouting at them in Italian they couldn’t understand. As Gracie reached Tom’s side of the car, she heard another car stop, a person get out, more Italian being spoken, heard the truck driver speak into his phone, shout into his phone, heard polizia and ambulanza. She was beside Tom now, trying to open his door, but the handle wouldn’t work. She could see him in the flickering light from the truck’s indicators. She said his name over and again. ‘Tom? Tom?’ The glass of the window was cracked but not smashed. He was lying at a bad angle, she could see that. His eyes were shut. He wasn’t moving. He was there. He was dead. She’d killed him.

Spencer was beside her. ‘Gracie? Is he all right?’ He sounded like a child.

She grabbed her brother’s hand so tightly she felt a jolt of pain up her arm. She was crying, the tears were flooding down her face but she couldn’t wipe them away. ‘I think he’s dead, Spencer. He’s ‘

‘He’s not. Gracie, he’s not. Look, he’s moving.’

She could only stare through the glass, put her free hand to the glass. Spencer was right. Tom was moving. His eyes were still shut but she saw him move his arm. She called his name, again and again, still pulling at the door, as if she could open it with her bare hands, pushing at the window as if she could get to him through the glass. She pushed again and heard the glass crack, like gunshot in the silent night air.

‘Leave it. Don’t touch him. Leave him.’ An American accent. A man, midfifties, bearded. In charge. ‘Step back. You need to step back. Don’t push the glass on him. Don’t try and move him. If his spine is injured, you could cripple him for life. Leave him.’ ‘He’s my boyfriend. I need him to know I’m here.’ She said his name again. There was blood on his forehead. ‘Tom, can you hear me?’ She couldn’t stop saying his name.

Sirens. Lights. More noise. The American voice again. ‘Miss, step back. Let the ambulance people through.’

They made her stand far back, too far back. She could do nothing but watch as the huddle of men and women spoke, as they decided the door was too damaged, they’d have to cut him out. Her ankle pain was almost unbearable but she wouldn’t move. Spencer was in the ambulance. She saw him talking to the nurse, smiling even. He was smiling. They called for her. She shook her head, shook their hands off her. She had to be there with Tom, had to let him know she was there, saying his name, trying to make herself heard over the terrible, ear-splitting sound of the cutting equipment.

With Spencer beside her again, she watched as the ambulance crew freed the still-unconscious Tom, as they gently, carefully placed a collar around his neck, eased him on to a hard stretcher. Her hands shook, her body shook, tears ran down her face. She saw the ambulance door shut, watched a second ambulance arrive for her and Spencer. Two policemen coming towards them, asking in accented English, ‘Who was the driver?’

She must have fainted then. Shock and loss of blood. When she woke up the first time, she was in the ambulance. The second time, she woke in the hospital, with her forehead bandaged, her ankle in plaster. It took an hour to find someone who spoke enough English to answer the question she couldn’t stop asking. ‘Is he all right?’

‘Your brother? He is fine.’

‘Not my brother. The other man. Tom. Is Tom all right? The man in the crash with me.’

‘More serious. Surgery. Your mother is on the way.’

Spencer had phoned Eleanor, she learnt later. While she was taken into the emergency ward, given brain scans and x-rays, he had telephoned Eleanor in London. ‘We’d been out to dinner, having a few drinks. Gracie was driving and she ran into a truck.’

They took blood samples while she was unconscious to check her alcohol levels. She was under the limit. But it was too late to change the story that Spencer had unwittingly spread. They’d been out eating, drinking and then she had driven. She was a drunk driver.

It took Eleanor eight hours to get to them from London. Gracie cried as soon as she saw her mother’s anxious face. Eleanor was crying too. ‘Mum, I’m so sorry.’ Gracie couldn’t stop apologising. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Gracie, it was an accident. An accident. We all know that. Nina will understand.’

Her mother thought she was apologising for what had happened to Tom. ‘Is Nina here already?’

‘She’s on her way.’

‘I have to see him,’ she said, trying to get out of the bed, pushing against her mother’s hands as she gently, firmly moved her back.

‘Gracie, your ankle’s badly broken in two places, you’ve got bruised ribs, a bad cut on your head. You have to stay still. And he’s in intensive care, darling. You can’t see him yet. Not yet.’

‘But I have to see him. He has to know I’m here.’ ‘They’re only letting family see him, Gracie. I’m so sorry.’

It was thirty-six hours before Nina arrived in Rome. Gracie heard her voice late on the second afternoon, outside in the corridor. Confined to her bed, she could only sit up and wait for her to come in. But Nina didn’t come in. She stayed outside, talking, shouting at someone. At Eleanor, Gracie soon realised. Nina’s voice was more like a cry, her words tumbling over each other in her panic and shock. Gracie heard Nina shout Tom’s name, say something about Tom, then say her name, heard her shout ‘drinkdriving’. But she hadn’t been drinkdriving. She’d been under the limit. Who’d told Nina she’d been drunk? She waited for her mother to tell Nina it wasn’t true, but there was only silence. They had moved out of the corridor, out of earshot.