Forget Me Not (23 page)

‘And the man would have to be right,’ Patrick pointed out.

‘Of course he would. What about you?’

‘Oh I’m definitely the right man,’ he replied with a smile.

I laughed. ‘I meant, would you want more kids?’

‘I’d love to have more,’ he said. He sipped his wine. ‘Having another family would help me … not to get over it – I never can – but to feel a little less heartbroken.’

‘You shouldn’t have them just to compensate you for that sadness.’

‘No, you’re right. It wouldn’t be fair. I should only have them because I love children and have a lot to offer them, which I know I do.’

That seemed like a good answer. Then Patrick talked about Sam again – and about Suzie.

‘How do you feel about her now?’ I asked him.

He put down his spoon. ‘I hate her,’ he replied simply. ‘That may sound harsh, but I can’t help it. I stayed with her when she got pregnant and looked after her, and did my very best to make her happy. In return she had an affair, left me and took away from me the most precious thing in my life, my child.’

‘If she’d at least stayed nearby …’ I murmured.

‘Exactly. Then my relationship with Sam could have been preserved. Instead, she chose to get involved with a man who she knew was going to return to New Zealand – to spite me, I felt.’

‘Why would she want to?’

‘Because I hadn’t married her. She was angry about it, but by then I felt that she only wanted to marry me so she could divorce me. I simply didn’t trust her.’

‘You said she lied in court.’

‘She did. There’s no doubt about that,’ he added.

‘But … what was it she lied about?’

Patrick hesitated for a moment, then laid down his fork. ‘Something … happened,’ he began quietly. ‘There was an … incident. I want to tell you about it, because I know that Suzie gossiped about me, misrepresenting me, doing me a lot of harm …’ As his voice trailed away I thought of Sandra – she’d clearly had a negative take on him.

‘So what was it?’ I murmured.

He took a deep breath. ‘I was playing with Sam,’ he whispered, ‘in the garden of our house in Caithness Road. He was just under two then and had reached the age where he loved to be swung round. He was begging me to do this and he kept saying, “Again, Daddy! Again and again!” – and it’s very hard to resist tiny children when they want something. So I did swing him round – but I made a stupid mistake. I now know that you have to pick up small children under their armpits if you’re going to swing them, not by their hands or arms. But I’d never done it before so I held Sam by his arms, and I swung him round twice and his shoulder became dislocated.’

‘Oh …’

‘We rushed him straight to A and E and they put the shoulder back in, and yes, of course he was in pain for a few days afterwards, poor little boy, but you can imagine how dreadful I felt. It was totally unintentional, Anna. It was an accident, an
accident
.’ His eyes were shining with tears. ‘But Suzie twisted it in court.’ He swallowed. ‘She used it – she was utterly cynical and totally ruthless.’ I noticed that the tiny scar on his nose had gone white.

I laid my hand on his arm. ‘Can I tell you something, Patrick?’ He looked at me. ‘Years ago, that happened to my parents. They were doing “one, two, three, whee” with Mark on the beach in Cornwall. And they swung him a little too high and the same thing happened – apparently it’s quite easily done with small children: they felt awful, but it was just one of those things.’

‘Yes. It was just one of those things,’ Patrick repeated vehemently. ‘But in the private hearing we had about Suzie’s plan to live in New Zealand, she suggested that I’d done it recklessly – deliberately even. At that time I was fighting her tooth and nail to stay in the country and she clearly thought that lying about it might help her case. And when my solicitor suggested that Sam should live with me, Suzie said she would never allow it, not least because of what had happened that day – as though I wasn’t to be trusted.’

‘What did the judge say?’

‘She said that an isolated incident like that in no way proved that I was an unfit parent. But, at a deeper level, I believe it made her take against me. So I felt that Suzie had besmirched my character – on top of the terrible wrong she was about to do me.’

I laid my hand on his. ‘It’s best not to think about it. But I’m glad you told me.’

‘I love Sam with all my heart,’ Patrick went on. ‘But I have to control myself, because I feel so angry: I’m his father, but Suzie took him fourteen thousand miles away – as though my role in his life were worth nothing.’

‘How often do you see him?’

‘Oh …’ He shook his head. ‘All the time. I see him on the swings, or running around in the park, or just walking down the street with his mum, or sitting in the back of a car, gazing out of the window. Just about every little boy I see reminds me of Sam. But to answer your question, every six months. I go out to Christchurch and I stay in a guesthouse nearby for two weeks at a time, and I do my best to remind my own son who I am and how much I love him.’

‘When he’s older he’ll be able to come and stay with you.’

‘I hope so,’ Patrick replied. ‘Though that’s a long way off. But for now I can hardly bear to think of what I’m missing out on, every single day of his life.’

‘You must feel very deprived.’

‘I do.’

The next morning we woke early and walked across the  dewbeaded grass in the early-morning sunlight. I had my camera with me, to take photos of the flowers and architectural features for my database of pictures. As I clicked away, Patrick asked me to describe the personalities of the plants we were looking at in the beds and borders.

‘What about these early poppies?’ he said.

I looked at their tissue paper flowers, emerging from their bristly pods. ‘My mother used to call those Gatecrashers because they’re self-seeding – they just turn up. So do verbena’ – I pointed to the tall bracts of mauve flowers – ‘and that honesty over there and that buddleia growing in the crack in that wall. I love Gatecrashers,’ I added. ‘I love their spontaneity, the way they just drop in uninvited and enliven the garden party.’

‘And what about those Crown Imperials?’ he said.

I gazed at the huge scarlet
Fritillaria
, with their topknot of frilly foliage, on their fat, succulent stems. ‘Those are Drama Queens. You can’t ignore them. They’re extroverted and uninhibited, like …’

‘Red hot pokers?’ he suggested.

‘Exactly. Or
Acanthus
, or
Agapanthus
– or those huge
Gunneras
over there. They’re real show stoppers.’

‘The ones that look like giant rhubarb?’

‘Yes.’ Their leaves were so big that a ten-year-old child could shelter under them.

As we strolled back to the hotel for breakfast, my phone buzzed with a new text message:
Pls cll me when u can,
Jx
. As it didn’t sound urgent, and as Jamie and I either speak to or text each other up to twenty times a day, I decided to wait until I got home. He was probably ringing me about the Italian garden in Hampstead – he’d said he was going to look for some reclaimed marble paving.

After breakfast Patrick and I sat in the library with the newspapers. Patrick was reading the
Sunday Times
while I glanced through the
Observer
– I like their gardening section. Then I picked up the
Sunday News
, curious to see what garbage Citronella had spewed out this week. Today she was expatiating upon sibling relationships:

I’m very fortunate in that my twelve-year-old daughter
,
Sienna, absolutely adores her little brother, Erasmus. The
reason is that right from the start, my husband and I did
the sensible thing and prepared her properly for his birth
.
So many parents don’t involve the older child or children
at a sufficiently early stage, but spring it on them, late in
the day. But we told Sienna about the baby as soon as we
knew. We took her along to all his scans, giving her an
enlarged framed photo of him, in utero, at thirteen weeks
and twenty weeks to put on her bedroom wall. We
constantly talked to her about him and told her what a
very special and clever baby he was going to be, and what
a
lucky
girl she was. We made up a charming story about
him and read it to her every night. We took her with us
to buy nursery equipment and toys for him. We even showed
her the video of Erasmus’s birth
…

‘Yuck!’ I exclaimed. ‘How
gross
!’

Patrick looked up, startled. ‘What?’

‘Oh, just this Citronella Pratt, who writes for the
Sunday
News
.’

‘She lives in Brook Green, doesn’t she?’

‘She does, unfortunately. Her son’s at Milly’s nursery school.’ I told Patrick what she’d written. He pulled an appalled face. ‘What I don’t understand is why she’s got this column – all she does is write about her own life in an incredibly dull but boastful way.’

‘I think you’ll find that it’s because her brother, Neil, is chief executive of the
Sunday News
,’ Patrick replied, as he turned back to the paper. ‘My PR people had dealings with him once.’

‘I see.’ I shut the paper. ‘Well, that must explain it – because nothing else does.’

We had one last swim before going up to pack. Patrick finished first, then went down to reception to pay the bill, so when I’d collected my things together I sat on the padded window seat, enjoying the view for a minute or two longer. Below me, people were leaving and arriving. I heard the crunch of wheels on gravel as another luxury car drove slowly away, its roof gleaming in the midday sunshine, and now I saw a black cab pull up. The door clicked open, like the wing of a stag beetle, and a slim, attractive woman stepped out. From where I was sitting all I could see was the top of her head, but then she suddenly looked up at the front of the building. The shock lifted me on to my feet.

Thea?
Why was she here? I peered at her through the window as she paid the driver. Perhaps she had some client event on, or maybe she was here with Jamie. I scanned the car park for his truck but all I could see were Mercedes, Ferraris and Rolls. And I had just decided to run down and say hi to her when I saw a smart, dark-haired man of about forty emerge from the hotel and walk towards her. He took Thea’s face in his hands, kissed her on the mouth, then they walked inside, hand in hand.

‘Are you all right, Anna?
Anna?
’ I turned round. ‘Are you OK?’ Patrick asked as he stood in the open doorway. ‘We ought to hit the road, otherwise we’ll be late. Didn’t your dad say he’d like us back by two?’

‘Er … that’s right,’ I murmured. ‘He did.’

‘So have you got everything, then?’

‘Um … yes – I have.’

Now, behind Patrick, I caught a glimpse of Thea and the unknown man walking along the landing, heads inclined, his arm round her waist.

‘Have we got the same room?’ I heard her ask. Then her companion said something and I heard her giggle.

‘Are you OK, Anna?’ Patrick said again. ‘You’re … staring at me.’

‘Am I? Oh, sorry … I was … dreaming … erm … But yes, I’m ready to go.’ Patrick stepped into the room and picked up my weekend bag. Suddenly my mobile rang. As I read the number, my heart sank. Now I understood why Jamie had texted me on a Sunday morning – he’d just found out and was in a terrible way. As I pressed the green button I struggled to compose myself.

‘I’ll see you downstairs,’ Patrick said tactfully. I gave him a little wave.

‘Anna?’ I heard.

‘Jamie!’ I replied with neon brightness. ‘Er … how are you?’ I braced myself.

‘I’m fine, Anna. Never been better.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. I feel … great, actually – just … bonza.’

It took me a second or two to realise that he wasn’t being ironic. ‘But I wanted to tell you something,’ I heard him say, ‘because you gave me such good advice the other day …’

‘Did I?’ I said faintly.

‘About Thea. I feel pretty silly, really – but you know that business card I found?’

‘Yes?’

‘The one that worried me?’

‘Yes?

‘The guy was called Percy du Plessis?’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, I’d got that completely wrong.’

‘
No
…’

‘Yes. Completely and utterly wrong. Are you all right, Anna?’

‘What? Sorry, Jamie, I’m just a bit … tired.’

‘Anyway, I did what you suggested and I talked to Thea about it – I didn’t get the chance until last night. I even told her that I thought she was having an affair…’

‘And what did she say?’

‘Nothing. She just looked stricken. Then I showed her the card – and she burst out laughing.’

‘She did?’

‘She couldn’t stop. Then she explained that “Percy” isn’t a man –’

‘Yes he is,’ I interjected. ‘I mean …’

‘No, it’s short for “Persephone”, but she’s always been known as “Percy”. Apparently she and Thea get on like a house on fire and the flirtatious banter is just a private joke between them.’

‘Are you sure?’

There was a momentary silence. ‘Of course I’m sure,’ Jamie replied. ‘Thea wouldn’t lie to me, Anna.’

‘No, of course she wouldn’t. Well that’s … amazing, Jamie.’

‘You sound surprised.’

‘I am – I mean – well, not really
surprised
, but you seemed so sure … you had this gut feeling … but it’s wonderful to know that your gut feeling was … wrong.’

‘It was, thank God. I feel so relieved. I was distraught and I’m sorry it made me ratty with you. But it’s good to know that I was worrying for nothing. And when Thea realised the mistake I’d made, she was pretty happy too.’

‘Uh huh,’ I said blankly, my mind still racing.

‘I get a bit paranoid because she’s away so much – I can’t help it. Anyway, she’s off to the Cape again today. I’ve just taken her to the airport.’