The Best of Times (54 page)

The concert had been Anna’s idea. Georgia had been talking to her in the pub one night, trying to explain how bad she still sometimes felt about the crash—“and not just about Patrick, the lorry driver, although there he is, three little kids to keep and no job, really—there are other people who are still really hurting. That man whose wife was killed, with a little boy he’s had to give up his job to look after him, and several other people who have lost their livelihoods, no fault of their own, like one girl who can’t walk, and she was a dance teacher, or who’ve had breakdowns, and I just feel so bad about them—here I am having a great time now, and it’s not fair. Is it?”

Anna had agreed it wasn’t fair. “But it absolutely wasn’t your fault, Georgia; you have to see that.”

“I know it wasn’t my fault—well, except for deserting Patrick—but that doesn’t stop me feeling terrible. I just wish there was something I could do.”

“Like what?”

“Well, I don’t know. Help. Really help. In a practical way.”

“What … like raise some money, maybe? Help them at least financially? Don’t look at me like that. Quite small things can help a lot. I did a gig for a concert, just a small one, that provides special bikes that physically disabled children can control. It means they can hare about like other kids. But … it’s only an idea.”

“I’m not looking at you like anything. Except in admiration. That … well, that could be a really great thing to do. D’you think I could?”

“With a lot of help, yes, I’m sure you could.”

Georgia felt as if a light had gone on in her head, shining into the dark, ugly memories and the rotting guilt, slowly but steadily shrinking them away. She could do something—actually do something to help all those people. It wouldn’t bring anyone back; it wouldn’t restore damaged muscles or bones or nervous systems; but it would be so, so much better than nothing.

She decided to talk to Linda about it.

• • •

Linda was cautiously enthusiastic; she thought it was a great idea … “But you really have to do it properly, Georgia. Think long and hard before you get into it, because it could turn into a monster. If you’re going to set up a charity, then you have to get it registered, appoint some trustees … I know that sounds like a lot of work and rather daunting, but people will be much more willing to help if it sounds official and not like a lot of kids raising a bit of money for fun. And it’s got to be done well. The venue alone will be a nightmare to find and fund, and you’ll have to scale everything to it. No use getting the Stones to agree to play and then offering them a rehearsal hall in Staines. Sorry, I don’t mean to discourage you. I just don’t want you getting into something you can’t cope with.”

Georgia said she was sure she could cope with it, and that she didn’t actually envisage getting the Stones; but a few enquiries revealed the extent of the venue problem. Hiring anywhere at all was hugely expensive and would wipe out any profit at a stroke; something radical was clearly required.

Linda said she’d sound a few people out, that she knew quite a lot of musicians, and maybe Georgia might even consider having a couple of dramatic items in the programme. The few people she’d sounded were cautiously interested; Georgia didn’t want to ask anyone
yet on
Moving Away
—she had enough to cope with there—but it would be worth a try when it was over; Merlin, she was sure, knew a lot of people in the music business.

She could see it was all going to take a long time; it needed intensive long-term planning. But an optimism had gripped her; she felt absolutely certain something would turn up—in fact, she said this so often that Anna had nicknamed her Mrs. Micawber …

• • •

The other person she talked to about it was Emma; she and Emma had seriously bonded at Mary’s wedding, got quite drunk and danced together. Emma said she thought it was a great idea. She agreed with Linda that it might be better to raise the money specifically for the hospital; she said she didn’t think she’d be much use herself, but when Georgia said she was forming a committee and that she was hoping Alex would come on it, she told Georgia to count her in: “Only if you think I could help, of course. I’ve … well, I’ve got a bit of spare time at the moment, so I could write letters for you, stuff like that, if you like. My mum works for a school, and she’s always being asked to go on fund-raising committees. Only small local ones, of course, but the principle’s pretty much the same. She might have some ideas.”

Georgia said she was beginning to think quite small and local herself: “It’s hopeless thinking we can do something big in London; it’ll cost squillions, and we’d never get the sort of people we’d need. I mean, the crash was local, and the hospital’s local, and people are bound to remember it. And there must be places in Swindon, for instance—it’s not that small—or Reading, maybe. Anyway, it’s early days. The great thing is to keep trucking, as Dr. Pritchard calls it … I’m going to start writing letters.”

• • •

She and Emma were both very intrigued by the relationship between Linda and Alex, which had become extremely obvious after Mary’s wedding.

• • •

“It’s a match made in heaven, really,” said Georgia. “I mean, Linda’s so lonely and needy …”

“Is she? She doesn’t come across lonely and needy …”

“No, but that’s her whole problem. Ballsy women, especially good-looking ones, just scare men off. Anyway, then there’s Dr. Pritchard, also lonely, you say …”

“Well, pretty miserable a lot of the time. His wife is an ace cow. She’s literally turfed him out of the house, sold it more or less over his head, as far as I can make out. He’s had to move into some cruddy flat in Swindon; it’s so not fair. They’ve got some nice kids, though. Like fourteen, fifteen, that sort of age. How’d Linda be with kids, do you think?”

“Mmm … she’s been pretty cool to me. We’ve had a few fights, but we’ve always worked it out.”

“Yes, but you’re twenty-two,” said Emma. “And she’s not having a relationship with your dad. Well, we’ll have to hope for the best. I love Alex, I really do; he’s such a sweetheart—all bark and really no bite at all. And he does seem much happier these days. I shall be very sad to leave him.”

“Which is when?”

“Oh … January, February time. Depends what I can get.”

“You’d better not go to some hospital in Scotland or something,” said Georgia. “Not until after the concert, anyway.”

“Right now Scotland looks quite appealing,” said Emma with a sigh. “Far away from London as possible, that’s what I want.”

She didn’t tell Georgia why, and Georgia didn’t ask. She could see something was hurting Emma a lot, and equally that she didn’t want to talk about it. Which usually meant in Georgia’s experience that she’d been dumped. Men were such idiots. Who’d dump someone as lovely as Emma?

The days when Alex mooded around, as Emma put it, and shouted were the days when he was undergoing severe anxieties over his relationship with Linda. She was gorgeous, she was sexy, she seemed really to care about him; on the other hand he had vowed he would not enter another relationship with anyone who didn’t totally understand the demands of his career and profession. Linda might understand them, but she was hardly going to give them priority. If it came to a conflict between a first night or a major audition, and a dinner with other doctors and their wives, the dinner would not win. They had already had a couple of run-ins over a South African trip, funded by a pharmaceutical company, which she’d persuaded him to accept. Having promised to be totally accommodating with the spousal programme—“I cannot believe there are things called that”—she had said there was no way she was going to go on a boat trip to Robben Island—where Nelson Mandela had been imprisoned—without him, or go on what she called an obscene trip to one of the townships.

“Patronising, utterly ghastly, I wouldn’t even contemplate it.”

“I seem to remember your saying that the tourist trade benefited the country.”

“I’m sure it does. I just don’t think sitting in an air-conditioned car and looking graciously around a series of shantytowns benefits the inhabitants very much. I’m not going to go, Alex, and that’s all there is to it.”

“Linda, you seem to be embarking on this trip in a rather different spirit from what you’d promised. I really don’t think it’s viable on this basis, and I don’t see how we can go.”

“Alex, that’s crap.”

“It is not crap. I said I didn’t like any of it in principle, that I never had, and you talked me round …”

“I did not talk you round!”

“Oh, really? I seem to remember a lot of talk about how it wouldn’t help anyone, my sulking in Swindon, while someone else went in my place …”

“I do dislike the way you play back everything I say to you. All right, then let’s not go. Let’s not do anything nice. You jut sit in your bed-sit and contemplate your navel.”

“I think I’d prefer to do that than see you alienating everyone on the trip. Not just your hosts, but the other wives.”

“I’ll be delighted to alienate the other wives. If they’re the sort of people who enjoy a lot of patronising garbage by way of a meal ticket …”

He’d left at that, without another word, too angry for twenty-four hours even to return her dozen or so missed calls. Finally she’d texted him:

VV sorry, totally wrong on this, need bottom smacked. xxx

Alex had replied that he would perform the smacking in person that Saturday; it had all blown over; she had meekly agreed to do everything on the spousal programme—“even the shopping trip”—but it had left him worried. Not just about the trip, but about Linda’s whole attitude. He was beginning to be afraid that she wasn’t going to be a supportive consort; the whole incident had illustrated that.

And what about the children; how was she going to cope with them? He needed a proper base, a real home, and a decent setup, in order to be able to claim their time and attention to any degree. Not to be haring up to Marylebone at every available opportunity to see a mistress who was hardly likely to welcome him with two inevitably awkward children in tow. A mistress, moreover, who would not in two dozen years consider moving to Swindon …

It couldn’t work; it was impossible—and the fact that he enjoyed her so much and for so much of the time was depressing in itself.

• • •

Dear Mr. Grainger
,

I hope you don’t mind my writing to you out of the blue, but a friend suggested that you might be able to help in some way, however small
.

I’m hoping you will get this safely and that I’ve got the right address; I looked up Grainger in the directory and your farm was definitely in the right place: if you see what I mean!

My name is Georgia Linley, and I’m the girl you met wandering
round your property on the day of the M4 crash last August. You were very kind to me, and I hope I wasn’t rude!

I know you were incredibly helpful to everybody that day—allowed the air ambulance to land on your field, and brought water for people to drink, and did all sorts of other kind things—so I’m hoping you’ll feel sufficiently interested to read on!

I am trying to organise a fund-raising concert in aid of the crash victims and their families, many of whom are still in considerable difficulties. I have the support of several people at St. Marks Hospital in Swindon, where the injured were all taken; I could let you have names there, if you’re wanting to check my credentials
.

Patrick Connell and his family have all become good friends of mine. He was the lorry driver who was at the forefront of the crash, and who had given me a lift that day. He was very badly injured, and can’t work at the moment; he’s just an example of one of the many deserving causes
.

We are setting up a charity, in order to make sure that everything is done properly and in a businesslike way. If you log onto crashconcert.linley.com you can check that as well
.

Several musicians have already expressed an interest—nobody very grand yet, I’m afraid—but until we have a venue, we can’t get a great deal further, and that is proving the biggest obstacle so far
.

I wondered if you would be willing to contribute anything, however small, to our setting-up fund; and in due course, obviously, to bring as many people to the concert as possible
.

We’re also looking for a sponsor: any suggestions in that area would be hugely helpful
.

Yours sincerely,
Georgia Linley (Ms.)

William sat staring at the letter, concerned not so much with helping Ms. Linley, who sounded rather engaging, and whom he remembered as being extremely pretty, or even with the unfortunate
crash victims, who were undoubtedly a very good cause, but wondering if this was a second enormous nudge on the part of the Almighty in the direction of his reestablishing a relationship with Abi. If so, then he should surely respond—before the Almighty gave up on him altogether.

• • •

Abi had been at work when he rang.

“Hello, Abi. You all right?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m fine, thanks. You?”

“Absolutely fine. Abi, I’ve had an idea. Well, I’ve had a letter, actually.”

“Well … which? Or is it a letter with an idea?”

“Um … bit of both.”

“Hmm. Hard to guess this one, William. Film, book, play …”

“What?”

“Charades. Didn’t you ever play charades?”

“Few times. Yes, I see what you mean. Well … what’s the sign for concert?”

“There isn’t one. William, do spit it out. Please.”

William spat it out.