Yesterday's Sun (11 page)

“At least a month.”

“And after that?” Holly could feel her heart wrenching in her chest.

“More traveling. I’m sorry, Holly.”

Tom’s eyes were glistening and Holly’s heart pulled some more. She didn’t want to see Tom hurting, not again. She leaned over to kiss Tom on each of his eyes. “Kiss me,” she told him sternly.

“Even when I smell of garlic?” Tom asked with a weak smile.

“It just makes me hungry.”

“So eat me.” The smile on his face had now reached his eyes.

Holly giggled and the sound of laughter eased her disappointment. They had each other. They would always have each other, she told herself. She savored every kiss and every caress and when they made love Holly held on to Tom like she was never going to let go.

Later that morning, when they had worn themselves out and had nothing to sustain their appetites other than a box of very squashed chocolates, Tom and Holly dragged themselves out of bed and down to the kitchen to raid the fridge.

“So when do I get to see your fabulous new studio?” Tom asked.

“As soon as you’re dressed and decent. This is a respectable village and I can’t have you going out in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts and risk frightening the locals.”

“We don’t have any neighbors nearby,” replied Tom. “And anyway, if your friend Jocelyn comes calling it would probably make her day.”

“Jocelyn won’t be calling, not today. Everyone knows to keep away for a day or two. Even Billy.”

“Ah yes, Billy. I wouldn’t mind speaking to him.”

“So he can finish your halfhearted attempt to landscape the garden, by any chance?”

“My new job is going to mean more money. If I can’t be here to do the work myself, the least I can do is spend my hard-earned cash on making a beautiful garden for my wife. And I might just be able to afford another project I’ve had in mind,” Tom answered cryptically.

Holly recalled standing beneath the full moon, standing on the well-manicured garden and looking toward the house. “What kind of project?” she asked as the now-familiar sense of fear crawled up her spine. She held the vision of the conservatory in her mind’s eye and willed Tom not to make the suggestion.

“That’s going to be between me and Billy.”

Holly shrugged her shoulders. She didn’t want to hear something that might give more substance to her hallucination. “Suit yourself, then,” she told Tom.

Tom looked at Holly openmouthed, shocked, and a little disappointed by her quick submission. He wasn’t used to winning so easily. “I will, then,” he said, his bottom lip turned out in boyish petulance.

Feeling guilty at bringing Tom’s little game of words to a sudden end, Holly set about distracting him. “Well, if you want to size up Billy’s expertise, let’s go take a look at the studio. I’ll even let you visit half-naked. Let’s live dangerously.”

The weather was warm and there was a damp, earthy smell in the air. June was blooming and in the garden the spring daffodils had made way for the summer flowers. “The dandelions are doing well,” Holly commented as they slipped out of the house barefoot toward the studio. She was only wearing a vest top and knickers and hid as best she could behind Tom.

“Ooh, ouch, so are the nettles,” he said as he led the way carefully along a narrow and overgrown path that marked the boundary between the house and the studio.

The entrance to the studio faced the road and was the only place where they risked being seen. “Morning, Mrs. Davis!” Tom shouted casually.

Holly gasped and crouched further behind Tom. Then she peeped over his shoulder before thumping him. “You don’t know a Mrs. Davis,” she said. “Now open the door before someone really does see us.”

Nowadays Holly spent most mornings in her studio, and the bright, airy space was a second home to her. Tom, on the other hand, had last seen the studio when it was still a building site. She looked at his face intently to savor the reaction. His eyes were wide in amazement as he took in the white walls and the sunlight that danced brightly across the walls and floor. Against the starkness of the white, Holly had hung a mixture of her own artwork and an eclectic selection of photos and other images to inspire her. Some pictures had been pinned to the walls and others hung on wires from the ceiling, creating small clusters of color scattered around the outer edges of the room.

Tom walked around the studio as if stepping through an enchanted forest. “It’s amazing,” he said at last. “I never imagined it would be like this.” He touched a picture frame that seemed to be floating in midair. It was a photograph of Tom and Holly laughing. A neighboring photo was one of them on their wedding day; another was of Grandma Edith. “She would be so proud of you,” he told her.

Tom’s attention was next drawn to Holly’s ongoing projects. Workbenches lined one full side of the room and a few pieces of work in progress were stacked up waiting for completion. The main work area, taking full advantage of the skylights, was the center of the studio and here a dust sheet hung over the sculpture Holly was working on. There was an easel next to it with some of Holly’s sketches taped to it.

“So this must be the sculpture for the dreaded Mrs. Bronson,” Tom noted.

“It’s a scaled-down version and I’m still not one hundred percent happy with it. I’ve got another month to get her to sign off on the final design, then up until Christmas to complete it. And then I’ll finally be free of her.”

“Can I take a look?” Tom asked. He knew very well that Holly hated him looking over her shoulder while she worked and often refused to show him any of her works in progress, not until she was sure in her own mind what the finished article would look like. She didn’t want to risk being swayed by other people’s opinions, as she always seemed to lose her way if she did. Holly decided to take a chance and pulled off the dust sheet to reveal the sculpture. It was about three feet high and was standing on a wooden box to raise it up to eye level, where she could work on it more easily.

The bottom section was made from plaster of Paris but painted black to represent the marble that would be part of the final piece. Above the swirling black figures that formed the base emerged the white figure of the mother, or at least that was what the current mess of twisted chicken wire would eventually become. Holly had made better progress with the figure of the baby held in its mother’s arms. The baby’s face was smooth and white, the Cupid’s bow lips perfectly formed, and its plump cheeks perfectly round. Holly had drawn inspiration not from Mrs. Bronson’s photographs of her son, which were discarded somewhere on her workbench, but from the baby she had seen in her vision.

Tom traced its tiny face with a gentle stroke of his finger. “It’s beautiful,” he said.

Holly smiled, but the treacherous wings of guilt fluttered across her heart. She felt awkward as she watched Tom look in wonderment at the beautiful contours of the baby, not least because her own mind had already created a vision of him holding and feeding the very same child.

“I can’t wait to have a baby of our own,” Tom said, as if reading her mind. He looked at Holly and saw the shadow of doubt in her eyes. “Now that I know what’s happening at the studio, we can start on that five-year plan of yours.”

Holly didn’t want to have this conversation right now. Her resolve to have a baby and prove her vision wrong, to prove Sam wrong, had withered and died when Tom had cast doubt about his job and their future. She stood in front of Tom, speechless, unsure what to say.

“You’ve changed your mind, haven’t you?” he said, almost as an accusation.

“I don’t know. Everything is so unsettled at the moment. Maybe we should put off making plans for now.”

Tom’s body tensed and there was anger in his voice. “For God’s sake, Holly, when is the time ever going to be right?”

Holly wasn’t surprised at Tom’s frustration, but the anger shocked her. “What’s wrong?” she asked, knowing Tom well enough to know that his reaction was about more than her usual prevarication over having children.

Tom sighed and the anger left his body with a low hiss like a deflated balloon. “I’m taking the anchorman job because it means I can give you and any children we may have a stable, secure life. If I had the guts, I’d tell them to stuff their job and go freelance, but I haven’t because I want what’s best for us—us as a family.”

“Well, why don’t you go freelance? I’m sure you’d find enough work; we’d manage. My work at the gallery is selling well. Tom, we could do it if you really hate the thought of being a news anchor so much.”

“It’s a good job and I can’t look a gift horse in the mouth. And if it means I can be at home more when we do have a family then I really do want to do it. I just want you to want it, too. Yes, it’s going to be unsettled for a year, but after that we’ll know what’s going to happen and we can plan.”

Holly laughed but it was tinged with suppressed hysteria. “Do we? Do we really know what’s going to happen? What if we can’t have everything we want, Tom? What if everything comes at a price?” Holly was conscious that she was teetering on the edge of a precipice and, with a little more nudging from Tom, she was ready to tell him about her vision.

Tom lifted his hands in despair. “I love you, Holly. I love you with every beat of my heart, with every breath that I take and with every bone in my body. I couldn’t love you any more and I will never, never love you any less. But you drive me mad sometimes. You drive me mad because I can’t seem to convince you that you’re not going to repeat your mother’s mistakes. What could be so frightening about creating a baby? Look at the sculpture you’re working on. If that’s what you can make from a load of chicken wire and paste, imagine what you can make from love. What do we have to lose?”

Holly knew exactly what she could lose, but she really did need to hold on to reality. The Tom standing in front of her was real and the baby they could make together would be real, too. “She is beautiful, isn’t she?” Holly said to him. She looked intently at the sculpted image of the baby and the orange embers of maternal feelings that she had all but extinguished burst into flames. “I think I’m ready to put that five-year plan down in writing. Five years for me, you, and whoever comes along.”

Tom stepped toward Holly and leaned down to kiss her forehead, then her nose. Hovering over her lips, he waited for her to come to him.

“Don’t tell me, more practice?” she asked in a whisper. She needed Tom to hold her more than ever and she leaned up to kiss him. They tumbled onto the dust sheet that was lying abandoned on the floor and their gentle caresses transformed into an urgent, passionate rhythm that chased away Holly’s fears for the future and replaced them with hope and anticipation.

Jocelyn was ready to forego her usual Sunday brunch with Holly while Tom was home but Holly insisted. It might have been only days before Tom would be jetting off for Canada, but Holly was looking forward to introducing Jocelyn to him. It felt just like she was introducing a new boyfriend to her parents, not that she had ever experienced that before, or even contemplated it for that matter.

“What time will she be here?” Tom asked nervously as he came out to the patio, which was bathed in sweet summer sunshine.

Holly was laying out napkins and cutlery on the garden table. “Oh, she usually gets here about eleven. It depends how long it takes her to loosen up her joints and get walking.”

“You should have said so. I’ll go get the car and pick her up,” Tom said, turning on his heels to head back into the house.

Grabbing Tom by the arm, Holly pulled him back. “Oh no you don’t. Jocelyn would be livid if you started treating her like an invalid. She’s a firm believer in mind over matter and she won’t even think about slowing down yet. Believe me, I’ve tried already.”

“Good grief, I’m going to have another iron lady to deal with. If I’d known, I would have invited Billy over to even out the numbers.”

“You’ve been meeting up with Billy quite enough as it is,” Holly accused him.

“Well, you’ll be seeing a little bit more of him while I’m away,” Tom replied. He looked ready to slope back into the house, but Holly still had hold of his sleeve.

“Tell,” commanded Holly. She ignored the flow of adrenalin surging through her veins. She knew what was coming, but she had a new talisman to ward off any doubts about the vision of the future. She and Tom had committed their five-year plan to paper just as she had promised. She had written it down with Tom sitting beside her at the kitchen table, in full view of the full moon and fully aware that the moondial was vying for her attention. The plan recorded that the rest of the current year would be set aside for Tom’s travels, in the following year they would plan for baby number one, by year three Tom was supposed to start writing the book he’d been putting off forever, and then by year five, maybe, just maybe, baby number two. Five years, all planned out, and Holly was there in the future with Tom. It was written down in black and white and nowhere did it mention dying in childbirth. It simply wasn’t in the plan.

“Well, see this patio table,” Tom explained as he guided Holly farther away from the house so they could visualize his plans. “Say, from over there, just before the kitchen door, right across the back of the house in front of the living room and then out, say this much.” Tom was now pointing excitedly to an imaginary line that reached past the current patio area and across the garden. “Imagine, if you will, a beautiful structure of glass and steel, perfectly placed to catch the warmth of the sun with the right amount of shade at the end of the day to take the occasional evening aperitif in our brand-new …”

“Conservatory,” Holly said blankly, finishing his sentence. She didn’t need to visualize the conservatory; she had already seen it firsthand.

“So what do you think?”

Holly wanted to tell Tom to rip up his plans, but she looked at his puppy-dog expression and couldn’t say no. That didn’t mean, however, that the vision she had seen would come to pass, and Holly was about to make sure it didn’t. “I think that’s a lovely idea, but there is one suggestion I’d like to make before you finish off your designs.”