The Angel Tree (46 page)

‘I’m sure you will.’ Cheska stood up. ‘I’ll see you downstairs. I’m going to ring Bill, my agent, and apologise for firing him. See if he’ll take me
back.’

‘That’s my girl.’

‘Oh, and I think it would be a good idea if I made an appointment to see a therapist. All my actor friends have one. It’s
de rigueur
. No big deal, is it, Uncle
David?’

‘No, Cheska, it isn’t, it really isn’t.’

She left the room and David sank back on his pillows, a sigh of relief escaping his lips. Maybe now that Cheska had talked openly about her fears she would be able to deal with them. Of course,
it was early days, but after the last week, when he couldn’t see how he could possibly leave her, there was now a glimmer of hope.

Maybe his longed-for trip would take place after all.

‘Have you got everything, Uncle David?’ Cheska asked as he came downstairs carrying his suitcase.

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘Great. The cab’s waiting.’

He put down his suitcase. ‘Now, young lady, I want you to promise me you’ll keep up the good work. Are you sure you’ll be all right? I can always stay an extra day or two
if—’

‘Shush.’ She put a finger to his lips. ‘I’ll be fine. Bill has already organised some stuff for me, so I’m going to be kept very busy. Who knows? Leaving
The
Oil Barons
might be the best thing I ever did.’

‘Just promise me you’ll carry on seeing that therapist you’ve found. By the way, there’s a cheque for you on the coffee table. It should see you through for a couple of
months.’

‘Thank you. I promise I’ll pay you back as soon as I’ve got a job. Now, skedaddle, or you’ll be late for your flight.’

Cheska accompanied David outside to the cab. Before he got in, she flung her arms round him.

‘Thank you so much. For everything.’

‘Don’t be silly. Just look after yourself.’

‘I will. Have a wonderful trip with Tor. Send me some postcards!’

‘Goodbye, Cheska. I’ll call you from England.’

David waved out of the window until she had disappeared from view.

On the long flight home David was unable to relax.

Was Cheska well enough to be left? Should he have stayed longer? There was no doubt her recent transformation had been remarkable and, outwardly, the woman with whom he’d spent the past
few days had seemed balanced and calm.

But had the change been too immediate . . . too perfect? She’d fooled them all once before, when she’d returned to Marchmont from the hospital with Ava and then left so abruptly for
LA. David only hoped Cheska would continue to see the therapist and prayed that she’d soon find an acting job to get her teeth into.

He also agonised over whether to tell his mother where he’d been for the past few days and the state he’d found Cheska in. After all, he was going away with Tor for months and it
would be difficult to contact him in an emergency. That was the whole point of the holiday for him: to let the rest of the world slip away.

Eventually, he decided he couldn’t tell her. It would only upset and worry her and, with her recent operation and her forthcoming birthday party, it just wasn’t fair.

David was at least deeply thankful that Cheska had seemed to have no interest in seeing Ava. She was thousands of miles away from Marchmont and, he reflected, that was probably a good thing.

All he had to do now was tell Greta.

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep. He’d done all he could. Now it was
his
chance for happiness.

Cheska had watched David’s cab depart with a mixture of relief and sadness. That night, after she’d tried to talk to him about how she felt and confided in him
about the voices in her head, she had gone to sleep feeling calm and relaxed. But then the voices had woken her, telling her she’d let David get too close; if she talked any more, they would
lock her away again.

She had sat up sweating and shaking. The voices were right. She’d been wrong to confide in him; so she’d had to make sure he went home. It had taken a great deal of effort to ignore
them when they talked to her, but somehow she’d managed to appear normal for the past few days and now he was gone.

Her life wasn’t over. The voices had told her what to do.

She was going to Marchmont, to see her daughter.

Greta, as she always did when David was coming to visit her, spent an hour in her local salon having her hair styled and set. Even though she was sure he didn’t notice,
it made her feel better. She then busied herself in the kitchen, baking a Victoria sponge and her special scones, which she knew David loved. She brought out her best china tea service from the
cabinet and dusted it clean before laying it on the coffee table. Checking her watch – he was due here in under an hour – she went to her bedroom to change into the skirt and blouse
she’d laid out earlier. Applying a little mascara, blusher and pale pink lipstick, she went into the sitting room to wait for the doorbell to ring.

She hadn’t seen him for weeks, because he’d been in Hollywood making a film. Bless him, he always offered to take her with him, which she knew was just out of kindness. Besides, the
thought of having to go to an airport, get on a plane, fly in a cramped cabin for twelve hours, then land at an unknown destination was simply too much for her. It took all her courage just to
venture out to the local supermarket and the salon once a week. She’d hurry back home afterwards, sighing with relief when she was back in the sanctuary of her apartment.

David was very sweet when she tried to explain her fear of the outside world; he said it probably had something to do with the night of the accident. Apparently, there’d been a crowd
waiting with her for the lights to change on the pavement outside the Savoy. Then someone had shoved her from behind and she’d fallen out into the road and in front of a car.

Greta thought this might partly account for her agoraphobia, coupled with the fact that she’d spent many months institutionalised in the quiet, calm atmosphere of a hospital. She’d
remembered the day they said she could go home and how she’d put her hands over her ears in terror as David had led her out onto the noisy London street.

But it was also a feeling she couldn’t explain to anyone. Everyone else out there in the world knew who they were, they carried their histories inside them everywhere they went; whereas
she was just an empty husk of nothing masquerading as a human being. So, as much as she didn’t like crowds or noise, the fact was that being with other, normal people only made her feel more
desperate about what was lacking inside her.

The only exception to that rule was David, maybe because he was the first person she’d seen when she’d woken from the coma. He’d been there at the start of her miserable new
existence and she trusted him absolutely. However, even though he was always patient with her, doing all he could to jog her memory, she could occasionally feel his frustration. He’d show her
one of the endless photographs he used to remind her of her past, and when her memory remained as blank as ever, she could see it upset him.

Sometimes, when she looked down on the busy street from the safety of her third-floor window, Greta felt as though she was living in a twilight world. The doctors had suggested it was of her own
making. They thought she
could
remember, because, apparently, no damage had ever shown up on any of the brain scans they’d done. This meant that her memory loss was somehow
self-imposed; because of the trauma, they’d said.

‘Your conscious mind has simply decided it doesn’t
want
to remember,’ one consultant had told her, ‘but your subconscious knows everything.’ He had
suggested hypnosis, which she had tried for a good three months, to no avail. Then there had been a course of tablets – Greta reckoned they were antidepressants – which another
consultant said might relax her and take away the fear of remembering. All they did was make her sleep until mid-morning and feel lethargic for the rest of the day. Then there had been the therapy
sessions, where she sat in a room with a woman who asked her inane questions like how she was feeling, or what she’d had for supper the night before. This line of questioning had been
something that had really irritated her; she might not be able to remember anything from before the accident, but her memory was as sharp as a tack on everything that had happened to her since she
had woken up.

In the end, by mutual consent, they had all given up, closed the files and locked her unfathomable condition away into a steel cabinet.

Except for David. He never seemed to give up hope that, one day, she would remember. Even if she herself had lost hope long ago.

One of the most painful things was the fact that, because the doctors could find no reason for her condition, she was left with an endless sense of guilt that somehow this was her fault, a
problem she could solve if she really wanted to. Sometimes, she saw a look in people’s eyes – especially LJ’s, on the few occasions she’d come up to town with Ava and
they’d visited her for tea – that told Greta this was what other people believed, too. And out of everything, Greta thought this was the worst; that people actually thought she was
pretending. Sometimes, during the endless, solitary evenings, her eyes would fill with tears of anger and frustration that anyone could think that she
wanted
to live like this. In her
darkest hours she wished she had died in the accident, rather than having to suffer the incalculably lonely existence she’d endured since.

If it hadn’t been for David, she might well have done something to put an end to this half life she led. No one would miss her: she wasn’t needed or useful to anyone, simply a
burden, which was why she made sure she never made too many demands on David – even though, when he stood up to leave, she wanted to throw herself into his arms, tell him she loved him more
than she could ever say and ask him to stay forever.

The words had been on the tip of her tongue often enough but she’d always stopped herself just in time. What kind of a life would she be subjecting him to? A woman who jumped at the sound
of the telephone ringing, would rather die than have to go out and be sociable with David’s many friends, could never in a million years see herself travelling further than her local high
street, let alone to America or David’s newly purchased apartment in Italy.

All I can give him is scones
. She sighed to herself as the doorbell rang.

‘Hello, Greta, you look very nice today,’ David said, kissing her on both cheeks and handing her a bunch of tulips. ‘They’re so gorgeous, I had to buy them.’

‘Thank you,’ Greta said, touched by the gesture.

‘You used to love tulips,’ he said as he made himself comfortable in the sitting room and surveyed the scones. ‘My favourite. I’m meant to be on a diet, but how can I
resist?’

‘I’ll just put the kettle on to boil.’ Greta hurried into the kitchen. She’d switched it on only a few minutes ago, knowing it would take less time to boil a second time,
because she didn’t want to waste a single second with David.

Carrying the teapot through, she placed it on the table and sat down opposite him. ‘So, how was Hollywood? You were away a little longer than you said.’

‘Yes, filming overran, as it often does. I’m glad to be back. That town is not a place I’d ever choose to be for long, as you know.’

‘Well, at least you got a tan,’ she said brightly, pouring out the tea.

‘You look as though you could do with some sun, Greta. I know I’m always saying it, but it might do you good to take a walk and get some fresh air. Green Park is looking very
beautiful at the moment, with all the summer flowers out.’

‘That sounds like a good idea. Maybe I will.’

They both knew she was lying.

‘So, are you busy in the next few weeks?’

‘Very,’ David said. ‘Apart from anything else, I’m going to Marchmont this weekend for Ava’s eighteenth, and then of course, it’s my mother’s
eighty-fifth birthday party in August. I presume you got the invitations to both?’

‘Yes, and I’ve written back to them, and put some money in a card for Ava. I’m sorry, David. I just . . . can’t.’

‘I know, but it’s a great pity. We’d all have loved you to be there.’

Greta swallowed hard, knowing that she was letting him down again.

‘Maybe another time?’ David said, understanding her discomfort all too well. ‘Anyway, Greta, I have some news.’

‘Really? What’s that?’

‘Well, I’ve decided to take a sabbatical.’

‘You’re going to stop work?’

‘Yes, for a while anyway.’

‘Goodness, that
is
news. And what will you do instead?’

‘I’ve decided to go off and see a bit of the world. I have a friend – Victoria, or Tor as everyone calls her – and we’re off on an adventure. India, the Himalayas,
Tibet, and then on to do the Marco Polo route through China – which is why I shouldn’t be reaching for another of your delicious scones.’ David chuckled as he did so.
‘I’m meant to be getting myself fit for the trip.’

‘Well . . . that sounds interesting,’ Greta managed, determined not to let David know a dagger had just sliced through her heart.

‘I’m going to be away for six months, perhaps longer. And you understand, Greta, that it means we won’t be seeing each other for a while, but I really feel it’s now or
never. I’m getting old.’

‘Of course!’ Greta feigned enthusiasm. ‘You deserve a holiday.’

‘Well, I’m not quite sure I’d call it that, but it will certainly do me good to take a break from the treadmill. Are you going to be all right without me?’

‘Of course I am. As a matter of fact, I’m working my way through all of Charles Dickens’s books, so that’s keeping me occupied. After him, I’m moving on to Jane
Austen. One of the few good things about my memory loss is that I can read all the great classics again, but for the first time!’ Greta smiled brightly. ‘Please don’t worry about
me. I’ll be fine.’

David’s heart went out to Greta, knowing she was putting on a show for him so that he wouldn’t feel guilty. He was her lifeline, and they both knew it. Yet again, he wavered in his
determination to make this trip with Tor, and Greta saw it immediately.