Water Like a Stone (13 page)

At their last meeting, Rowan had presented Annie with a dipper she had painted especially for her, her way of communicating the thanks her husband had been too proud and angry to offer.

Not that Annie had expected thanks. Dear God, she had only done what she could to redress the wrong they had already suffered, their unconscionable betrayal by the system that was meant to protect them.

At first Annie thought the
Daphne
was uninhabited. The curtains were drawn and there was no sign of movement. Then she saw the faintest wisp of smoke rising from the chimney, and a moment later, Gabriel Wain emerged onto the stern deck.

He started to nod, the easy greeting of one boater to another, then froze. Expression drained from his face like water from a lock, until all that remained was the wariness in his eyes. His thick dark hair was now flecked with gray, like granite, but his body was still strong. When Annie had first met Gabriel Wain, she had thought him too big to fit comfortably on a narrowboat, but he moved so nimbly and gracefully about the cabin and decks that he might never have set foot on land.

Now he stood, feet slightly apart as he balanced against the slight rocking generated by his own movement, and watched her. When he spoke, his voice held a challenge. “Mrs. Constantine. To see you once, after so long, I might think chance. But twice in as many days? What do you want with us?”

Annie flicked the last of the snow from her trousers and straightened to her full height. “It’s not Constantine these days, Gabriel. It’s Lebow. I’ve gone back to my maiden name. And I’m not with Social Services anymore. I left not long after I worked with you. I bought the boat,” she added, gesturing towards the
Horizon
. When he merely raised an eyebrow, she faltered on. “It was good to see you yesterday.
The children look well. I’m glad. But Rowan—I wondered if I might have a word with Rowan. I thought yesterday—She didn’t seem—”

“She’s resting. She doesn’t need your interference.”

Annie took a step nearer the boat. “Look, Gabriel, I understand how you feel. But if she’s ill, maybe I could help. I—”

“You can have no idea what I feel,” he broke in, his voice quiet for all the fury behind it. “And she’s not ill. She’s just—she’s just tired, that’s all.” There was the fear again, a chasm yawning behind his eyes, but this time Annie thought she wasn’t to blame.

“You know I helped you before,” she said more firmly. “You know I was on your side. I might be able—”

“Our side? You, with your tarted-up boat”—he cast a scornful glance at the
Horizon
and spat into the canal—“you don’t know anything about our lives. Now leave us alone.”

“You can’t throw me off the towpath, Gabriel.” She knew the absurdity of her position as soon as the words left her mouth. What was she going to do? Call Social Services?

“No.” For the first time, there was a hint of bitter humor in the curve of his mouth. “But I can give up a good mooring if you insist on making a nuisance of yourself, woman.”

And she could cast off the
Horizon
and follow. Annie had a ridiculous vision of herself trailing down the Cut after the
Daphne
at three miles per hour, a slow-motion version of a car chase in an American film. She sighed, feeling the tension drain from her shoulders, and said quietly, “Gabriel, I know what happened to your family was wrong. I only want—I suppose what I want is to make up for it in some way.”

“There is nothing you can do.” There was a bleak finality in his expression that made her wish for a return of his anger. “Now—”

The cabin door had opened a crack. The little girl slipped out and Gabriel glanced round, surprised, as she tugged at his trousers leg. She was fairer than Annie had noticed yesterday, and in the clear
light her eyes were a brilliant blue. “Poppy,” she whispered. “Mummy wants to see the lady.”

It had, in spite of Gemma’s worries, turned out to be a nearly perfect Christmas. She’d been a little ashamed of her relief when she learned that Juliet and Caspar and their children would be having their Christmas dinner with Caspar’s parents. Her heart went out to Juliet—she couldn’t imagine how Duncan’s sister was coping after Caspar’s behavior last night—but she hadn’t wanted the couple’s feuding to poison her own children’s day.

Kit and Toby had slept in, only tumbling downstairs with Tess after Hugh had got the bacon frying and Geordie, her cocker spaniel, and Jack, the sheepdog, had started a rough-and-tumble game in the kitchen. Kit had thrown on jeans and a sweatshirt, but Toby still wore pajamas and dressing gown, and clutched his Christmas stocking possessively to his small chest.

When Rosemary said there would be no presents until after breakfast, not even Toby had complained, although Gemma knew that at home he’d have thrown a wobbly and whinged all the way through the meal.

Half an hour later, replete with eggs, bacon, and sausage, the adults carrying refills of coffee, the dogs damp from a romp in the snow, they all trooped into the sitting room. Hugh had built a roaring fire and switched on the tree lights, and with the sun sparkling on the snow outside the window, the room looked magical.

Perched on the arm of the chesterfield, leaning against Duncan’s warm shoulder, Gemma watched the children. Rosemary had asked Kit to help his younger brother hand round the presents, but as soon as Toby found a few gifts bearing his name, he ripped into them, tossing shreds of paper about like a storm of New Year’s confetti. Kit, on the other hand, waited until he’d passed round a few gifts for everyone, then, only at his grandmother’s urging, carefully removed the
paper from one of his own packages. First he pulled loose the tape, then folded the used paper, then wound the ribbon into a neat roll.

Gemma marveled at the difference in the boys—Toby a miniature marauder, Kit hoarding his gifts while he watched everyone else, as if he wanted to postpone the pleasure for as long as possible. Would he ever dive into anything with abandon, she wondered, without fearing that it would be snatched from him?

But in spite of his habitual caution and the slight shadows round his eyes, she thought he looked happier and more relaxed than he had in weeks. And he had stayed close to Duncan all morning, the tension of yesterday’s row apparently forgotten.

Now his eyes widened in pleasure as he finished unwrapping his gift from his grandparents—a trivia game he’d been admiring in the shops for months.

“How did you know?” Gemma asked Rosemary, laughing, as Kit went to give his grandmother a hug.

“A good guess,” Rosemary said lightly, but she looked pleased.

“Oh,” breathed Toby, his flurry of motion stilled as he uncovered his own gift from Rosemary and Hugh, a large wooden box filled with multicolored pastels, and a pad of drawing paper. “What are they?” he asked, running his fingers over the sticks. “Are they like crayons?”

“A bit,” answered Hugh. “And a bit like chalk. We heard you were quite the artist. I’ll show you how to use them later on.”

Giving Gemma’s shoulder a squeeze, Duncan stood up and rooted under the tree until he found his gift for his father. “I know it’s a bit like coals to Newcastle,” he said, passing it across with studied nonchalance, but she heard the anticipation in his voice.

Hugh hefted the package in his hand and grinned. “Feels like a book.” But when he had peeled off the paper, he sat for a moment, gaping at the small volume, before looking up at his son. “Where did you find this?” he whispered.

Kincaid had come back to the sofa and slipped his arm round
Gemma. “A bookseller in Portobello. I thought you might like it.” It was, as he had explained to Gemma in great detail, a copy of
Conversations About Christmas,
by Dylan Thomas, one of only two thousand printed in 1954 for the friends of publisher J. Laughlin, none of which was then offered for sale. The text was a segment of Thomas’s “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” altered by the poet into dialogue form.

“I don’t know what to say.” Hugh pressed his lips together but didn’t quite stop a tremble.

Kincaid cleared his throat and said a little too heartily, “Read it to us, then.”

“Now?” asked Hugh, looking at his wife.

Rosemary nodded. “Why not? The turkey’s in the oven. We’re in no rush.”

And so Hugh stood with his back to the fire, a pair of reading glasses on his nose, and, in a credible Welsh accent, began to declaim the lines that took Gemma instantly back to her own sitting room the previous Christmas. Duncan had read the poem aloud to her and the children, and she had imagined a string of Christmases to come, with the boys and the child she carried snuggled beside her.

She shivered and Duncan hugged her a little closer. “Cold?” he murmured in her ear.

She shook her head and put her finger to her lips, listening intently as the words rolled over them, painting pictures more vivid than memories. Even Toby sat quietly, his pastels held tightly in his lap.

Duncan had outdone himself, Gemma thought, as if this Christmas, and this homecoming, had been particularly important to him. He had woken her that morning by setting a box beside her pillow.

“What?” she’d said, blinking sleepily and pulling herself up against the headboard as he sat on the edge of the bed.

“Open it.” He was dressed, she saw, but tousled and unshaven, and she guessed he had tiptoed down to the sitting room to retrieve the package.

“Now? But what about the child—”

“This isn’t for the children, it’s for you. Go on, open it.”

She was fully awake now, and her heart gave an anxious little jerk. Pushing her hair from her face, she delayed. “It’s bigger than a bread box.”

“If you don’t open the damned thing, you’ll be lucky to get a loaf of bread, much less a bread box,” he’d said with mock severity, so she had peeled off the wrapping as carefully as Kit had. “And no, it’s not a toaster,” he’d added as she saw the appliance label on the cardboard box.

She’d pulled back the box flaps and dug into the nest of tissue paper, easing out first a pottery sugar bowl, then a jug, in the same bright Clarice Cliff pattern as the teapot a friend had given her after her miscarriage.

“Oh,” she’d breathed, “you shouldn’t have—Wherever did you—They’re lovely.” The pieces were rare, and bloody expensive, and she guessed he—and their friend Alex—had spent months looking for them.

“You like them?” He’d looked suddenly unsure.

“Of course I like them!” Pulling him to her, she brushed her lips across his stubbly cheek. His skin felt warm in the room’s chill, and smelled of sleep.

For just a moment, she’d hoped he’d chosen something a little more romantic, something that represented their future together…

Then she’d mentally kicked herself for being a fool. If she wanted something as mundane as a ring, all she had to do was ask and he would take her to the nearest jeweler. Instead, he had gone to a great deal of time and expense to find something that had personal meaning for her—not only a personal meaning, but something that symbolized her recovery. What could possibly be more romantic than that?

Dear God, did she think a little thing like a ring was proof against emotional disaster? Her thoughts strayed to Juliet and Caspar and
she shuddered, ashamed of her brief lapse into the pettiness of traditional expectations.

No, ta very much, she would much rather keep things the way they were. To prove it, she’d thanked Duncan with great enthusiasm, and now the memory of that warm half hour made her move a little closer into the circle of his arm.

Later, when the presents had all been opened, Hugh had finished his reading, and the sitting room tidied, they’d had turkey and all the trimmings at the long kitchen table. They’d pulled Christmas crackers to the accompaniment of the dogs’ barking, and had all put on their silly paper hats, much to Toby’s delight. Gemma knew that Rosemary and Hugh must be worried about Juliet, but they had done their best to make the day special for the children.

When they had eaten as much of the turkey as they could manage, they all pushed back their chairs with groans, and by mutual consent agreed to postpone the Christmas pudding until teatime. Gemma insisted on helping Rosemary with the washing up while the men and boys got out the trivia set. She watched them—Hugh, Duncan, and Kit—as they sat over the game board, their lean Kincaid faces stamped with the same intent expression. And then there was Toby, the odd duckling in the brood. How lucky for him, Gemma thought, that he was not the sort to notice that he didn’t belong.

She was glad they had come, she mused as she wiped plates with a tea towel. She hadn’t realized until they’d got away just how much they’d needed a change, a break from work for her and for Duncan, a break from school for Kit.

When the phone rang, Rosemary was up to her elbows in the washing-up water. “I’ll get it, shall I?” said Gemma, and at Rosemary’s nod picked up the handset.

“Gemma?” The word was little more than a whisper, but Gemma recognized Lally’s voice. “Look, I don’t want my dad to hear me,” the girl went on hurriedly. “I’m at my grandma’s—my other grand
ma’s. I’m in the loo, ringing from my mobile. Have you seen my mum?”

“Here?” Gemma asked, surprised. “No. Why?” Rosemary had turned to listen, her face frozen in instant alarm, her hands still submerged in the soapy water.

“She left here ages ago, before dinner,” said Lally, choking back a little hiccup of distress. “She said she’d forgotten something and she’d only be a few minutes, but she never came back.”

On a blustery day in early spring, he was idling through the covered market in the town center after school, bored with lessons that were too easy, bored with teachers taken in by his excuses, bored with stupid classmates too easily influenced.

He moved from stall to stall, examining the merchandise under the watchful eye of the stallholders, enjoying the knowledge that he could easily lift something if he chose. It was all worthless tat, though, not worth the bother.

Then a basket beside the fruit-and-veg stall caught his eye. Had it moved? Leaning closer, he heard a high-pitched mewling, and what he’d initially thought was a bundle of yarn resolved itself into a mass of tiny, squirming kittens.