The Winter Children (43 page)

The other two watch her, Francesca’s expression growing grief-stricken, and Dan’s still frozen with horror as he hears her unravel all the plots and schemes he has concealed from
her.

‘Well?’ she demands. ‘Are you going to tell me?’

‘It’s not what you think,’ Dan says weakly.

‘You can do better than that!’ she jeers. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be a playwright? I’m expecting some good dialogue now. A speech explaining to me exactly why
this isn’t the most appalling mess. Why you thought it was a good idea to deceive me in the most fundamental way possible. Dan . . .’ She walks towards him and he cowers a little as she nears him. ‘And you two used to sleep together, did you? You let me
bear your ex-lover’s children?’ She gestures towards Francesca. ‘You lied to me about you and her. You never told me what happened between you. Do you think I would have let her
into my life, into my home if I’d known? Do you think I’d ever have left her alone with my children? Are you mad?’ She’s close to him now, shouting. ‘You’ve
ruined everything, you stupid bastard! It didn’t have to be like this! And now we’re living in her fucking house!’ A manic energy possesses her. ‘Well, that’s over
right now.’

She turns and runs out of the kitchen, heading upstairs to the children’s room. She grabs a bag from Stan’s wardrobe and starts stuffing it with his things, mentally racing through
what they need:
clothes, pyjamas, nappies, coats, shoes, hats, blankets, toys . . .

Dan is there in the doorway. ‘What are you doing?’

She casts him a glance. He is pale and trembling. She has never seen him like this before. He’s afraid. He’s powerless. ‘I’m packing up. We’re leaving.’

‘Where are we going?’ He sounds meek and docile. Not like the strong, commanding Dan she has always known, with his confidence and his good looks and his charm.

‘
We?
I don’t know where you’re going, but the children and I are leaving.’

‘What?’ He looks baffled. ‘Without me?’

‘Yes, without you!’ She stops packing the bag and stares at him, feeling the first ache of the avalanche of pain she knows is coming. Anger is easier right now. ‘What do you expect? Can’t you see what you’ve done? How can we come back from these lies? You’ve deceived me. I’m your
wife.
’ She is speechless suddenly, a bitter blockage in her throat. She turns back to the bag.

‘Are you leaving me?’ he asks miserably.

‘Of course I am,’ she says briefly. ‘You can stay here with your darling Cheska for all I care.’

‘She’s going,’ he says. ‘I called Walt yesterday. He’s coming to get her.’

‘Then you’ll be here all on your fucking own, won’t you?’ she snaps. ‘Plenty of quiet to get that bloody play written!’

She thinks suddenly of the children, downstairs in the television room on their own, with just Francesca there, and gasps. Dropping the bag, she pushes Dan out of the way and runs past him, down the stairs and along the hall. She bursts into the
sitting room, and there they are: Stan and Bea, each nestled under one of Francesca’s arms.

‘Let them go!’ cries Olivia in a terrible voice, full of strength and fury. She feels able to lift Francesca up and toss her against the wall. She feels she could crush her with her
fingertips, she is so strong and fierce.

Francesca looks afraid but she tightens her arms around the children. ‘Please . . . let me say goodbye. I only want to say goodbye.’

‘Don’t touch them.’ In a flash she is there, wrenching Bea from Francesca’s grip. Bea is saying, ‘Mummy, Mummy,’ but as she senses the aggression in the air,
she starts to cry. Stan wails too in sympathy. Olivia reaches for him.

‘Don’t upset them,’ pleads Francesca. ‘Here – take them. They’re yours.’

Olivia nestles both children to her chest, their bodies awkward against hers. They press into her, crying loudly. ‘Never, never touch these children again. They
are
mine, do you understand?’ Her eyes are flashing and she is mighty, a mighty goddess who will destroy anyone who threatens
her children. ‘They’re mine and you can’t have them!’

Francesca drops her gaze to the floor, then says, ‘I’m so sorry, Olivia. I wanted him to tell you. I feel . . . more terrible than you can know.’ She covers her face with her
hands.

Olivia has no pity for her.
She was part of this lie. This filthy scheme. They both were.
She turns and pushes back past Dan, who is now in the doorway, and takes the children upstairs
back to their room. She puts them in their cots, where they howl until they forget why they were upset and start to play with their toys. Olivia continues to pack their things, until she has two
bags stuffed with necessaries.

She looks at them, satisfied. For now, she is only going to think about the practicalities of getting herself and the children away from this place. She’ll think about the rest later,
when there’s time. Dan stands, a pale shadow of himself, in the hall outside, unable to be far from her. She bumps into him as she comes out. She closes the nursery door behind her and says
warningly, ‘You’re not to go in. You can’t touch them. Understand? You’ve forfeited your rights for the time being. We’ll sort out what they are later.’

‘I can’t lose you and them!’ he cries in a broken voice. ‘I can’t take it.’

‘You should have thought of that before you decided to perpetrate your fraud. Because, make no mistake, that’s what it is. Fraud.’ She strides past him to their room to pack
her own things, leaving the bedroom door open so that she can hear if he attempts to go in to the twins. As she packs, she is able to think dispassionately about the shift in power, and the way she
is now the one in charge, and Dan, so often dominant, can only obey her.

Or perhaps he is even now downstairs with Francesca, cooking up some other plot.

Let him.
Olivia’s love for him feels dead and cold.
He’s killed it.
She finishes her packing, although she’s bound to have forgotten something, and heads back
towards the nursery.

I have the children. That’s what is good in all of this. I still have them.

When they are all ready, she brings the twins downstairs. Dan is there alone. She puts the twins on the play mat. ‘You can say goodbye to them now,’ she says coolly, ‘while I
pack the car.’

‘Where are you going?’ he asks. His voice is thick with tears and his eyes are red-rimmed and bloodshot.

‘I’ll tell you when I get there.’ She leaves them with Dan. The massive sadness that is pooling inside her threatens for a moment to break free, but she manages to keep it contained. If she can just stay icy and calm until they are somewhere safe, she’ll be all right.

When the bags are stowed in the boot, she heads back to the house then stops with a gasp. A form emerges from the twilight of the garden and she realises it’s the gardener, William.

‘It’s you,’ she says, with a puff of relief.

‘Are you going?’ he asks, looking past her to the car.

‘Yes, that’s right. It’s all rather sudden. My husband will be here, though. I don’t know for how long.’

‘And the children, going with you?’

‘Yes.’ She goes to pass him. ‘So now, if you don’t mind . . .’

‘It’s for the best,’ he says. ‘The children. It’s no place for them. Not here. Too many ghosts. Too much empty space. Take them somewhere else.’

‘I’m going to. Well, goodbye. And thank you.’ She smiles.

‘Goodbye.’ He melts back into the shadows and is gone.

In the kitchen, Dan has his head in his hands as he watches the children, tears streaming down his face. He looks up as she starts to gather up things for the journey: bags of rice cakes, cartons of juice, beakers, raisins, and all the rest.
Another bag. How will I manage it all on my own?

‘Please don’t go, Olivia. I told you, Cheska is leaving.’

‘Cheska’s whereabouts don’t concern me any longer. I don’t give a shit where she is.’

‘What about me?’ he asks. ‘Don’t you care how I feel?’

‘How you feel?’ she shouts, enraged. ‘No, at this moment, I don’t care a bit. I only care that you’ve destroyed our life together. You’ve poisoned our family
with your lies. Did you really think you could go through life concealing this from me? Or maybe I’ve misjudged you. Maybe you can go through your whole life refusing to see what you
don’t want to see! But I can’t. I can’t understand why you’ve done this, or how you thought we could have a marriage with this secret in it. It’s over, Dan. I can’t bear to look at
you.’

She hoists the bag over her shoulder, lifts up the children and carries them all to the car. Dan comes to watch as she buckles them in, then climbs into the driver’s seat and fires up the
engine.

As she reverses away, she doesn’t look at the figure of her husband on the driveway. And as she turns the car down the lane and heads off, she doesn’t look at the magnificent frontage of Renniston Hall. She can only think of the passports in her handbag, hers and the children’s, and the warm sunshine and peace of the villa in Argentina.

Francesca lies on the bed in the guest room, utterly drained. She feels as though she has lived a life today; or relived the most crucial moments in her past, the ones that set her on the path
to where she is now.

Now she understands so much more. But she is also flabbergasted by things that she never questioned till now.

What impulse of mischief made her offer her eggs like that? Why did she inveigle Dan to accept her offer in the way she did? It was surely obvious that it could only end badly.

But she knows that the urge came from long before, because of what had happened between her and Dan, and the lost baby that kept a ghostly existence between them over the years.

So is it Dan’s fault?

She is eaten up with grief for them all, and the stupid things that have happened. She loved him all those years ago but it was the passion of a teenager. Why didn’t she grow out of it?
She’s never been satisfied with what she’s got in her real life; she’s always hankered after a fantasy that didn’t exist. She let her desire for him scupper her chances of a brilliant degree. Her despair at the end of their affair and the loss of the baby ruined her dream of a great career. She accepted a
life that could never fulfil her in the same way, and clung on stubbornly to a pointless fantasy. She persuaded herself that Dan was somehow worth it. But now she sees him for what he really is,
and understands her own terrible mistakes. Here is the result.

The noises in the cottage tell her that Olivia has taken the children and the sound of car tyres on gravel signals her departure with them. A while later, there is a knock on her door. It
opens and Dan is there, tearful. His malevolence has drained away.

‘Cheska?’

She lifts her head to look at him. He’s bowed and broken. Where is the romantic hero in the dinner jacket who seduced her under an oak tree one night? He never was a hero, or a god, or the
man of her dreams. He was just an ordinary guy, a little better looking than most, but just a man all the same. Maybe not even as decent as the majority of men. ‘Yes?’

‘They’ve gone. She’s taken the children.’

‘I know.’

He leans against the door jamb. ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever see them again.’

‘You will. You’re their father. Give her time. She’s angry. Write to her and explain. Tell her how sorry you are and what a ghastly mistake you made.’

He looks at her hopefully. ‘Would you write to her as well, Cheska? You could tell her that you wanted to do it. You could tell her that I regretted it from the start and it was all your idea.’

She gazes at him, not sure whether to laugh or scream. ‘I don’t think more lies are the way ahead.’

‘She’ll never trust me again,’ he says, bleak once more.

‘You can hardly blame her for that. And that’s exactly why you have to start telling the truth. Why don’t you stop that stupid play and start writing something that might
achieve something? You could tell her the whole story. Everything. Honestly.’

He stands there, thoughtful. They look at each other, old friends once young and confident, now middle-aged and full of regret for their mistakes. She knows that she’s lived with a dream
all these years, and that the buried grief in her heart has infected her life. That’s all gone now, blown away like ashes on the wind.

It’s time to move on. At last.

She has a sudden yearning for her old life: for the comfort of home and the presence of her children. She gets up off the bed. ‘I’m going now, Dan. I can’t stay any
longer.’

‘You’re going to leave me alone?’ he says plaintively.

‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’ She has a new energy. There’s nothing more she can do here. She needs to get back to the people who love and rely on her.
I have to go home.
She scoops up her phone and sees a text message there from Walt.

Her heart swells with unexpected happiness. She remembers the last time that Walt swooped into her life and made her whole again. When she saw only darkness ahead of her, he brought life and
hope and love back into her world. That mattered then, and it matters now. Why did she chase the illusion of Dan, when she had the solid, reliable, loving reality of Walt all along? Why did she
scorn him when he is worth a hundred devious Dans? She taps out a message.

She looks up at Dan. ‘I need a taxi. I’m going back to London.’

‘I could drive you,’ he offers.

‘No thanks.’ She picks up her bag and starts to pack it. ‘You can stay here as long as you like. But Dan . . .’ She stops and fixes him with a stare. ‘If you want Olivia back, you’ll have to work for it.’

‘Do you think I have a chance?’ he asks mournfully, and she can hear the self-pity in his voice.

‘I don’t know,’ she says frankly. ‘But you have to try. That’s all we can do. Keep on trying.’