Losing You (68 page)

‘Indeed I shall. Wouldn’t miss it for the world. I’m talking about Sunday evening, if it’s not raining. If it is, we can always eat inside.’

Waving frantically to a carpenter as he appeared from behind a handmade puppet stall, Emma replied, ‘Either way sounds perfect, and speaking for myself and Phyllis, we’d love to come. Is there anything we can do, or bring?’

‘Just yourselves. I’ll take care of everything else.’

Signalling to the carpenter that she’d be just a minute,
Emma turned aside as she asked Russ, ‘Before you go, what news on Sylvie?’

His voice was pained as he said, ‘Some good, some bad. She’s back at the clinic now, following a weekend break with her friend Johann for one of their jolly little binges, though I suspect it was anything but jolly. I’m not naive enough to think this is going to be over any time soon, but I can’t help wishing for it anyway.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Emma murmured.

‘Thank you, but it’s the boys I’m concerned about. It’s not good the way they seem to feel so cold towards their mother. Sure, it’s a form of self-protection, but it’s sad, and whatever they say, it’ll be having an effect on them internally that will no doubt have to be dealt with somewhere down the road. Still, I can’t go on fighting their battles for them, or spending so much time sorting out their flipping love lives, and I’m not only talking about Oliver. Apparently Charlie’s just been dumped, and is feeling very sorry for himself.’

‘Oh no, poor Charlie,’ Emma sympathised. ‘Lucky that he has you to turn to.’

‘God spare me,’ Russ retorted with a shudder. ‘All these bleeding hearts, it’s just not manly.’

With a splutter of laughter, Emma said, ‘They must get their tenderness from somewhere, and from the little I know my guess is ...’

‘Definitely not me,’ he interrupted. ‘Heart of stone, that’s me. Mr Can’t-Be-Doing-With-It-All.’

Still grinning, Emma said, ‘Yeah, right.’ Then, ‘Actually, I’m afraid I have to go, but I’ll call you back as soon as there’s any news from the Bastille.’

After ringing off she spoke briefly to the carpenter about one of the puppet-maker’s last-minute requirements, then waving to Hamish who’d just turned up with a local news crew to let him know she’d be right there, she made a rapid call to her mother.

‘Where’s Lauren?’ she asked, before Phyllis even had a chance to say hello.

‘Upstairs having a lie-down. She did well with her physio this morning.’

‘Great. Next bit of good news, Romeo’s on his way.’

Phyllis gave a gasp of delight. ‘And not before time. Shall I go and tell her?’

‘No, wait till he’s there so she doesn’t have a chance to start fussing or saying she doesn’t want to see him, and then do your best to eavesdrop so you can tell us all about it later. Call immediately if anything goes wrong,’ and ringing off she headed towards Hamish and the crew, while making a mental note to bring Russ up to date with the compensation claim the next time she spoke to him. Another of the strange ironies between their two families was that Jolyon Crane, at Russ’s suggestion, was now acting for Lauren to get as much as he could out of the insurance company. Emma reminded herself that she needed to email Jolyon back to say that if he thought he could double the fifty thousand already on the table, then she was happy to follow his advice. Quickly making another mental note to reposition the event map closer to the entrance, and another to put a pile of hotel brochures inside the champagne tent, and another to call Portaloo to direct them in through the back gates, she joined Hamish and a bossy little producer to start going through the timetable of music and theatre acts for Saturday afternoon.

Phyllis was at the window as Oliver drove into the street. By the time he pulled up outside she’d already opened the front door and had a finger over her lips, warning him to be quiet.

‘No, I’m sorry,’ he declared urgently, clearly in no fit state to fully comprehend anything other than his mission. ‘I’ve had enough of this. I want to speak to her, and I’m going to do it right now. Where is she?’

Thrilled, Phyllis whispered, ‘Top of the stairs, middle door, but maybe I ought to check first to make sure she’s decent.’

Since he hadn’t considered that, he hesitated. ‘I don’t care if she’s not,’ he decided rashly. His handsome young face was flushed with defiance, his eyes feverish with an almost Byronesque passion.

‘No, but I expect she will, and you want it to start off well, I’m sure.’

Conceding the point, he allowed Phyllis to mount the stairs ahead of him, following close behind, casting an interested glance at the Stannah lift as he passed. At the top he paused as Phyllis knocked on Lauren’s door.

‘OK to come in, sweetheart?’ she called out.

‘Yeah, I’m awake,’ Lauren called back.

As Phyllis opened the door to find Lauren lying forlornly on the bed, Oliver crowded against her shoulder and the look of disbelief, followed by pure joy, that came into Lauren’s eyes turned Phyllis’s heart inside out.

‘What ... I didn’t knnow ...’ Lauren stammered as he burst past Phyllis.

‘For God’s sake,’ Oliver growled as he tripped over a bag in his haste, almost landing on top of her.

Giggling and sobbing, Lauren wrapped her arms around him, seeming to yield her entire self to his awkwardly positioned, but nonetheless passionate kiss.

At the door Phyllis gave a sigh of blissful satisfaction.

‘I’m not going to let you do this any more,’ Oliver suddenly exploded. ‘I love you, Lauren Scott, and nothing’s ever going to change that, not even you and the stupid things you tell yourself. We made plans, remember, and I want to stick to them, even if you don’t, but I know that you do and so don’t try saying you don’t, because I’m not going to let you ...’ He broke off as Lauren put her fingers over his lips.

‘I’m not arguing,’ she whispered.

Seeming only just to realise it, he gave a wry grin.

Her eyes were gazing deeply, adoringly, into his, as she said, ‘I’ve mmissed you so mmuch.’

‘Then why didn’t you ring me?’ he cried.

‘Why didn’t you ring me?’

‘Because you said you didn’t want to see me any more.’

‘But you should have knnown I didn’t mmean it. I was just in a strange mmood that day, and then, whenn I didn’t hear from you, I was afraid you were angry with mme.’

‘Angry? I was furious, and still am. How could you possibly think I wouldn’t want you once you got home? I’ve never heard such bollocks in my life.’

She gave a girlish laugh as she coloured, and as she touched her fingers to the two letters she was wearing round her neck, he covered them with his. ‘Do yooou really love me?’ she asked shyly.

Phyllis sorely wished she could see his face as he lifted his head to look into Lauren’s eyes, then she gave a choke of laughter as he said, in a very romantic voice, ‘No, I’m just pretending. I storm every girl’s bedroom like this, and ...’

‘Granny!’ Lauren exclaimed indignantly.

Phyllis straightened up, all innocence.

‘Yooou can go nnow,’ Lauren told her.

Phyllis feigned dejection. ‘Must I?’

‘Yes, you must,’ Lauren insisted.

Oliver turned to look at Phyllis, his eyes simmering with laughter. ‘Got yourself a ringside seat there,’ he remarked.

‘Oh, and it’s a marvellous performance,’ she told him earnestly.

‘Excuse mme,’ Lauren said, turning him back to face her. ‘Granny, why donn’t you go and play with yourr stairlift?’

‘Oh, I so want to have a go on that,’ Oliver cried.

‘I so knnew you wwould,’ Lauren responded with a roll of her eyes.

‘Yeah, but not right now,’ he assured her.

Smiling delightedly as she closed the bedroom door, Phyllis went to take her seat on the Stannah lift and motored gently down to the hall where she picked up the phone to call Emma, letting her know that the sun was shining and the forecast for the foreseeable future looked very good indeed.

The following Saturday, due in part to the glorious weather, but also to her exceptional organisational skills, Emma remarked immodestly to Polly and Keith McIntyre when they arrived, the turnout for the festival’s opening day was already exceeding all expectations. By noon the gardens were teeming with visitors, and the champagne tent had taken over a thousand pounds. As for the contributors, it would have been hard to make most of them any happier,
even if they weren’t all generating an equal amount of interest. Unfortunately, not everyone had good taste, or the cultural intelligence to appreciate ‘irony in flight’, as one woefully neglected ceramicist was heard to comment. If his work had resembled anything remotely discernible, it might have helped, but as it didn’t all Emma could do was sympathise and try her best to steer people in his direction. Alas, his odd little pieces might have been reverse magnets for the way those who approached suddenly veered off at the last minute.

Griselda the tarot reader was doing excellent business in her self-imported tent next to the crystal stall, while Poppy, a local landscape artist, was starting to run out of prints already and taking orders for more. She’d even sold three originals, one to the hotel, another to an established fan from Farrington Gurney, and the third to Russ, who’d snapped it up after learning, from Lauren, that it was Emma’s birthday in a couple of weeks, and that her mother absolutely loved the aerial perspective of the Clifton suspension bridge and Avon Gorge.

At Oliver’s insistence, Lauren was being pushed through the crowds in her wheelchair as he didn’t want anyone knocking her off her crutches, especially not when he’d entered them both for a five-mile walk at the end of September. It was to help raise funds for Headway, the brain-injury charity that was now playing its own crucial role in her recovery. This, happily, seemed to be back on track now that Oliver was in charge again, though the problem with her left hand still hadn’t been completely resolved.

However, Emma wasn’t going to allow herself to worry about more CT scans today, or the duraplasty Lauren still had to endure to repair her skull, or any of the countless neurological problems that could crop up in the future. Like it or not, this was how life was going to be for a long time to come, always wondering if any little slip, or memory loss, temper or misunderstanding was a result of her injury, or something that could happen to anyone at any time.

‘It would be lovely to have it all resolved by the end of the month, or even the end of the year,’ she’d said to her
brother the night before, ‘but unfortunately it’s just not like that. We have to take each day as it comes, and never forget to feel thankful that she’s not only still with us, but functioning as beautifully as she is.’

Harry had smiled fondly as he’d stood with Emma at the kitchen window, watching Lauren in the garden with his children, allowing little Phoebe, helped by Oliver, whizz her up and down the path in her wheelchair, while her brother Todd made a clown of himself with the crutches. ‘What news of Will?’ Harry asked quietly.

Grimacing, Emma said, ‘He emails occasionally to ask for updates on her progress, which I send him, but he hasn’t tried to see her again since the day he came to the centre.’

‘Does she ever talk about him?’

‘Not much, and her psychologist feels that it’s still too early to try and push it, in spite of the long letter of apology Will sent. She knows what he really thinks, because she heard him say it, so I don’t think the apology actually means anything. I’m sure she’d like to see the children though, but she’s in no hurry, and for now she seems happy enough with the little get-well cards they send from time to time, and the phone calls they make on Sundays.’

Harry and his family weren’t the only ones who’d driven down from London for the big event. Charlie was around somewhere, as was Alfie, who’d left Bristol a couple of months ago to join a firm of architects in Knightsbridge. Jerome, Oliver’s other close mate, was now in Durban working for a civil engineering firm, but that hadn’t stopped Oliver inviting him, and Emma had been deeply touched when Jerome, whom she’d never met, had sent her a message of good luck. A handful of Emma’s and Lauren’s old neighbours had hired a bus to bring them from Chiswick for the day, and about a dozen of Lauren’s schoolfriends, now anxiously awaiting their A level results, had done the same. Donna hadn’t come with them, and in spite of the relief that gave her, Emma couldn’t help feeling sad about it, and was sure that Lauren did too. However, she guessed that neither of them wanted the reminder of their lapse of
judgement, as Phyllis liked to put it (or shame, as Emma was more inclined to label it, but only to herself). So it seemed their friendship was yet another casualty of the affair that should never have happened.

Spotting Lauren and Oliver over by a jazz band made up of local accountants, Emma was about to go and join them when she was waylaid by a magician who’d apparently lost his wand (exactly what she was supposed to do about that she had no idea, until he suddenly made it appear from behind her ear). Then a jewellery designer, whose zany collection was attracting a lot of custom, called her over, needing to report several thefts from her stall. Emma immediately radioed security to get them to post a guard next to the designer’s glittering exhibits, then went to help a dear old doddery self-published author to pick up the spiritual guidance booklets she was so proud of and had managed to spill from their display stand.

As she continued to multitask her way around the fair, feeling exhilarated by the sheer success and bedlam of the day, she found herself being stopped every few steps by someone wanting to offer either congratulations, or complaints, or to ask where a certain stall could be found, or even to try and make a reservation at the hotel.

After directing an elderly gentleman and his wife to the Portaloos, she looked around for Lauren again, but with so many people crowding the gardens now it was impossible to find her. There didn’t seem to be any sign of Phyllis either, or Russ, or Polly and Keith who’d now become Polly’s regular Saturday night date. She spotted Melissa hurrying towards the performance stage with Alfie, while Harry and Jane were over at the pony ride with Phoebe and Todd. Hamish Gallagher and his wife appeared to be engaged in a happy little chat with the Lord Mayor, and a highly acclaimed actress who lived near Bath was attracting plenty of bidders to her silent auction, which included all sorts of film and stage memorabilia, and a copy of her newly published autobiography. All proceeds were going to Headway – the actress’s own choice, since she had a brother who’d been helped a great deal by the charity after a shooting accident that had left him blind
and partially paralysed. Emma had already put in a bid of forty pounds for the book, though when she was ever going to find time to read anything other than backgrounds on the
three
potential new clients who’d been in touch during the last couple of weeks asking her to organise an event for them, she had no idea.