Joely could feel herself rising from the depths of sleep, slowly, steadily through a gluey mist, not yet ready to open her eyes, but she was almost there. She couldn’t think where she was, but she was lying on a bed and every part of her body hurt like hell.
“Hey you,” a voice said softly.
It was Callum.
She opened her eyes.
He smiled and brushed his fingers over her cheek.
She gazed at him, taking in the silver threads in his disheveled dark hair, a couple more in his eyebrows, and the black flecks in his indigo eyes. His face was so familiar and so reassuring that she almost didn’t care where she was. She found he was gazing at her too, and at the same time they both smiled.
It was as if her memory was still sleeping for she was struggling to remember everything clearly, but she sensed something awry between them, something that needed to be resolved. Maybe it had been and she hadn’t yet remembered. “Are we OK?” she asked, and felt her heart tighten in anticipation of his answer.
His eyes softened more deeply into hers as he said, “You tell me. Are we OK?”
It was starting to come back, but not fully. “I hope so,” she whispered. “I think we need to talk.”
“Of course, but not right now.”
She looked past him and realized she was in one of her mother’s guest rooms. She had a faint recollection of Callum insisting she come to lie down, and no idea how long she’d slept, only that she’d felt more exhausted before he’d brought her here than she ever had in her life. Pain, drugs, emotion, had all taken their toll.
Looking at him again, she found herself thinking of all the reasons she loved him, and tears blurred her eyes. There were so many, and she wanted to tell him, but as her thoughts began to clear making way for Martha and everything else she held the words back.
She was remembering now what had happened before he’d brought her upstairs, the harrowing scene with Freda as she’d broken down so wretchedly and the way Marianne had comforted her. Where were they now?
“Your mother’s downstairs talking to Jamie on the phone,” Callum replied when she asked, “and Freda’s in the other guest room resting. I’ve heard from her nephew, Edward. He’s on his way back, but probably won’t get here until tomorrow.”
She thought of Edward on the ski slopes, tanned face and brilliant blue eyes. She pictured him hurriedly booking a return flight, and explaining to his friends why he had to go. “What did you tell him?”
“I gave him a brief outline of what I know. He was pretty upset to hear about what happened to you, and he’s very worried about her. Did you know that she’s had a breakdown before, presuming that’s what happened here?”
Joely nodded. “Yes, he told me when he came to visit her. It was just after her husband and brother died.”
Her eyes closed again as more pain throbbed through her left side. She tried to fathom how she felt about the secret her mother and brother had kept from her, but David hadn’t been her father, so why would they have shared it with her? Perhaps her own father had cautioned against it, concerned that she would feel protective of him, and she would have.
“Is Holly back yet?” she asked.
Wryly, Callum said, “We’re to expect her when we see her, and we’re not to worry about her because she won’t be worrying about us.”
Joely smiled and rolled her eyes. “She’s definitely her own person,” she commented softly. She’d like to go back to sleep now with Callum lying next to her and nothing to keep them apart, but she was too concerned about her mother, and Freda, to stay here any longer. “What time is it?” she asked, as he helped her up.
“Just after seven. Are you hungry? You must be. I’ll order a Deliveroo after I’ve helped you to dress.”
Realizing she was wearing only the sweatshirt Andee had loaned her, and a pair of pink cotton panties and socks, she said, “Did you undress me?”
His mouth crooked in a smile as he said, “Only your trainers and jeans. There’s clean underwear in the bag over there. Would you like to change?”
Yes, she would, but could she manage with one hand?
She found that she could, but he helped her anyway, and when her jeans were zipped and trainer laces tied he tilted her face up to his. “I’m still not sure why it started to go wrong between us,” he said softly, “but I want you to know that I never stopped loving you.”
Thinking of what she had to tell him, and of how hurt she’d been when he’d left her for Martha, she said, “We have a lot to talk about, but it’s good to know that, because I never stopped loving you either.”
By the time they got downstairs Marianne had finished on the phone and was with Freda in the sitting room, their hands wrapped around each other’s as they sat side by side talking softly. They looked up as Joely and Callum came in and Joely saw straightaway how drained, even shattered, both women looked.
“Did you have a good sleep?” Marianne asked.
Joely nodded. “Callum’s going to order in some food. I thought Jak’s?”
Marianne nodded. “There’s a menu in the kitchen.”
Callum fetched it and after everyone, including Freda, had made a selection, he went off to place the call while Joely, seeing that David’s letters were still on the table, began to fold them carefully back into a bundle and retie the lace.
Freda’s eyes were following her every move. “You say your son has seen them?” she said to Marianne, sounding baffled and tired and so different to the way she had before.
Marianne nodded. “After his first child was born he wanted to know about his father so my husband and I invited him to come here for a weekend. We thought it was better to do it with no one else around and I think Jamie was grateful for that.”
Freda audibly swallowed. “Did he . . . What did . . . ?” She seemed unsure of what to ask next, but then the words came. “Did you tell him good things about his father?”
Marianne smiled. “There are only good things to say about David.”
Freda’s gaze remained fixed on the letters. “But not about his father’s family?” she said.
Marianne’s eyes flicked to Joely as she said, “I won’t deny that he was angry about the way things had gone when he was born—”
“—and that none of us have ever tried to contact him since? Yes, I can understand that. We should have, of course. I wanted to, many times, but I was afraid to. I thought . . . I couldn’t imagine that you’d welcome my interest after we’d neglected you, and him, for so long.” Her head went down and her voice was barely more than a thread as she said, “Then, when I realized my husband had found you . . .”
“I swear I didn’t know it was him,” Marianne said gently.
Freda’s mouth flattened into a painful line. “I told Joely that he was like David in his ways, but all they really shared was a love of music and a name. David would never have behaved the way Doddoe did, but I kept hoping and praying that one day he would be like my brother, full of kindness and loyalty, humor and romance, but that day didn’t come.” She took a breath and continued to look at David’s letters as she said, “Spurning Doddoe would have been what inflamed his passion to its height and turned it into an obsession. He was like that, anyone or anything he couldn’t have he saw as a challenge. He had to win, and he usually did. But you say you got your husband to send him away . . .” Her eyes closed. “Of course it made him want you all the more, so much that he told me I needed to prepare myself because it would soon be over between us. He’d never said that before so I took him at his word. I needed to find out who it was . . .” Her voice trailed away and as she looked down at their joined hands it was as though she had no idea how hers had got there.
Joely wondered what she was thinking now, if she was really as rational in her mind as she was sounding. It was hard to believe that one single explosion of emotion had been enough to settle the chaos and confusion inside her, but she really did seem calmer and strangely comforted by the contact with Marianne.
“I’ve spent the past hour on the phone to Jamie,” Marianne told her, “and he’s coming to meet you. He should be here sometime tomorrow.”
Freda looked fleetingly scared, as though she might back away from this, but her voice was steady as she said, “Can I ask what you’ve told him about me?”
With another glance at Joely, Marianne said, “Nothing you wouldn’t want me to tell him.”
Realizing her mother was hoping she’d do the same, keeping to herself the way Freda had used and tricked her and come close to causing her death, Joely gave a small nod and slipped the letters into the box. There was nothing to be gained from telling Jamie any of that right now, but she knew she would one day, when the time was right.
There were only Marianne’s typed pages on the table now, and as Joely picked them up Freda said, “Did I get it right?”
Joely frowned in confusion.
“The memoir,” Freda explained, half turning to Marianne. “Did I get right the way you met and fell for each other, and all that happened between you? He told me a lot when I went to see him, so I knew then how much he loved you, but you were so young; I couldn’t make myself accept that you were capable of feeling the same way.” She sighed shakily. “I truly believed you’d lied in spite of what he told me.”
“You’ve captured our story well,” Marianne told her. “Maybe a few things are wrong, but nothing that matters.”
“The music?”
“A lot of it was right. I guess he told you about that too?”
Freda nodded. “Most of it. Some of it I added because it seemed to fit for the time and for what I knew of him and his tastes. What about the music you liked? How did I do with that?”
Marianne smiled. “I remember very well how us girls got carried away by ‘Young Girl’ when it came out, thinking it was about us . . . It had a powerful effect on me, and it did on David too.”
Freda nodded. “Yes, he told me about that, but I didn’t know about ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.’”
Marianne took a breath and Joely could tell that she was recalling, even feeling, what the song had meant to her back then. “He wasn’t to know,” Marianne said, “that it would become a big hit right after he died. He never heard Roberta Flack sing it, but for the months, years after he’d gone, I never seemed to hear anything else. It was always on the radio or playing on someone’s stereo and it kept breaking my heart, over and over again.”
“Do you think he’d have liked that version?” Freda asked.
“Yes I do, but I’ll always prefer the one he sang.”
Freda smiled and nodded, apparently liking that.
Joely turned around as Callum came into the room.
“Food should be here in half an hour,” he told them. “Can I get anyone a drink?”
“What would you like?” Marianne asked Freda.
Freda looked at Joely. “Shall we have some wine?” she asked, as if unable to make the decision for herself.
Though still thrown by the change in her client—if she was indeed still that—Joely managed a smile as she said, “Good idea. Red or white?”
“You choose.”
Opting for the white, Joely was about to go and give Callum a hand when the front door opened and closed. Moments after, Holly came into the room, eyes glued to her phone, only glancing up briefly to see who was there. “Hey, Freds,” she said cheerily. “What’s up? You look kind of, you know.”
Freds? Joely looked in astonishment at Freda as the older woman said, “I’m all right, Holly, thank you. How are you?”
“Yeah, cool, thanks.” At last she looked up from the phone. “Wow, Mum, you’ve got a sling and everything, and check out those bruises. Looks like you lost.” She laughed, clearly thinking her little quip funny.
Taking her by the elbow Joely steered her out to the kitchen, and closed the door as Callum joined them. “Freds?” she repeated to Holly, needing that answered right away.
Holly shrugged. “She didn’t seem to mind. Is she OK? She looks a bit upset.”
“She’s had . . . a difficult day, but she’s fine now, and yes, I am too, thanks for asking.”
Holly leaned forward to plant a kiss on her mother’s cheek. “I could do better than that,” she said, “but I don’t want to crush your arm. Does it hurt?”
“Quite a bit. So tell me about Freda.”
With another shrug, Holly said, “She’s kind of weird, isn’t she? She seriously spooked me when I looked up from my breakfast and saw her holding a knife like she was going to stab me. I honestly thought she was going to, but it turned out she was just putting it back in the block. I believed her, but I still reckon she did it to get a rise out of me.
“Anyway, we had a long chat after, and let me tell you, she’s got so much grief and loneliness going on it’s not surprising she’s weird. I felt really sorry for her. I even offered to cancel going out with Caitlin and the others to keep her company till you guys arrived, but she said she’s used to being on her own so there was no need to.”
Joely looked at Callum, who was opening the wine and appearing equally as amused as amazed. One relatively short conversation with a woman decades older than her and Holly had the reasons behind her mental instability sussed. Not that Joely and her mother hadn’t worked out what was going on, obviously they had, but for Holly to have got there so quickly . . . “What exactly did she tell you?” Joely asked carefully.
Holly began texting as she spoke. “About how everyone in her family is dead apart from her nephews—one she never sees, and the other is so busy he can’t get down to her place very often. Actually, I think she liked having you there, Mum, and she’s obviously really sorry about you ending up being locked in the house.”
Joely turned to Callum again.
Shrugging, he reached into a cupboard for glasses. “We’ve got a delivery on the way from Jak’s,” he told Holly, “are you going to eat with us?”
“Deffo. I’m starving. Are we staying here tonight, or going home?”
Callum looked at Joely.
Wishing they could go home, if only so she could use their bathroom and sleep in her own bed, Joely reluctantly said, “I think we need to find out what Freda’s doing first. Did she stay here last night?” she asked Holly.
“Yeah. She slept in the front guest room and wow, does she snore.”
“Does she have anything with her? Clothes, toiletries?”
Holly shrugged. “Not that I saw.” Down went the phone again. “Anyway, so what’s with you two?” she demanded. “Have you got everything sorted out yet, because it’s been kind of stressy living with you since Grandpa died, Mum, and I’ve worked out now that it’s all about grief, just like it is with Freds, but you’ve got to snap out of it. It’s doing my head in, and Dad’s.”
Joely stared at her hard. “Since when did you get to be the psychologist in the family?” she wanted to know.
Holly hadn’t finished, although it was Callum’s turn for the daughterly treatment now. “Just as well I moved over to Martha’s with you,” she informed him, “or you might have ended up staying there. Like I was really going to let that happen. But what were you thinking, Dad? I mean, Martha’s OK, but she’s not Mum. You’ve got a lot of making up to do, I can tell you that much, or have you already forgiven him?”
Joely wasn’t sure whether she wanted to laugh or not, though Callum didn’t seem in any doubt.
“Come here,” he said to Holly, and pulling her into his arms he gave her one of his best dad-hugs.
Holly’s eyes met Joely’s over his shoulder and she mouthed, “How am I doing?”
Not knowing what else to do, Joely gave her a thumbs-up.
Holly’s grin widened. “I totally love you guys,” she informed them, “and I just know you’re going to love Noel when you meet him.”
Callum started. “Noel?” he repeated.
“My boyfriend. I’ve been seeing him for a couple of months, but I didn’t want to bring him home while you two were messing each other up. If you can promise me you’ve stopped I’ll invite him over as soon as you like.”
Because she had to, Joely said, “How old is he?”
Holly’s eyes narrowed playfully. “Don’t worry, I’m not taking after Grandma in that. He’s only twenty-four.”
Joely wanted to faint, until she realized she was being wound up.
“He’s seventeen,” Holly informed her, “and if you want to know whether or not we’ve done it yet . . .”
“You better not have,” Callum broke in sternly.
“You’re only fifteen,” Joely added.
“Still not like Grandma,” Holly grinned, and giving them a little wave she left them to pour the wine.
“Did that really just happen?” Joely asked as Callum stared at the closed door.
“I think so,” he replied.
“And we created her?”
“She’s very much like you.”
Joely’s eyes narrowed and he quickly said, “In that I find her impossible not to love.”
Joely laughed, and looked at the ceiling as Holly’s heavy tread reached the landing. One of these days, she was thinking, she might get to have the same sort of relationship with Holly as she had with her mother, a lot of affection, easy friendship, and sharing, although she didn’t see it happening soon. However, maybe they were heading in the right direction.
“I think she’s right about your father,” Callum said, loading up a tray with four glasses and a bowl of nuts. “I hadn’t really seen it before she said it to me the other day.”
Joely nodded. “Yes, she is,” she confirmed, “although not quite in the way she thinks. Anyway, let’s take that through.”
When they reached the sitting room they found Marianne tying the ribbon around her memory box and no sign of Freda. “Where is she?” Joely asked.
Marianne looked puzzled. “I thought she came out to speak to you.”
Joely glanced at Callum.
“Well, she has to be around here somewhere,” he said. “She’s probably gone to the bathroom.” He passed Marianne a glass and another to Joely. “I guess we should wait for her to come back before I propose a toast.”
Several minutes passed and when there was still no sign of Freda Joely began to get an uneasy feeling fluttering about her insides. That woman was nothing if not unpredictable, and she definitely wasn’t stable, so what was going on now? “Do you think we should go and look for her?” she asked Callum.
“Yes, we should,” her mother replied. “She’s obviously not in the kitchen, so I’ll try the TV room and you can stay here while Callum checks upstairs. Don’t argue, you’ve lost all your color again so you need to sit down.”
Minutes later Joely was with her mother in the hall as Callum came down the stairs. “She’s not up there and Holly hasn’t seen her,” he told them.
Noticing her coat was still on the rack Joely said, “She can’t have left, so she has to be here somewhere.” Still feeling uneasy about this, she turned to her mother in time to see Marianne’s eyes widen with shock. Following their direction Joely experienced a jolt of alarm.
Freda was standing at the top of the stairs, unmoving, and appearing to be unseeing.
Callum ran back up to take her by the hand. “Are you OK?” he asked her gently.
She looked at him and blinked as though not sure who he was.
“Come on,” he said, “let’s go back downstairs.”
Allowing him to guide her, Freda took the stairs slowly and as she and Callum passed her in the hall Joely felt her heartbeat start to slow. What was wrong with her? Why did she look so zombified? And where had she been?
“I went to your bathroom,” she replied when Marianne asked.
No one asked why when there were others in the house, even one en suite to her guest room; they simply clinked one another’s glasses and decided to do without a toast.
It was as Joely took a first sip that her eyes met Freda’s again and she saw that the glazed look had gone. In its place was a glimmer of something that might have been . . . humor? “If I’m correct,” Freda said quietly, “you have just jumped to a conclusion about where I was. I won’t ask what it was, but I know it was wrong.” She raised her glass. “Presumptions,” she murmured half under her breath. “Remember what I’ve told you about them, Joely, and yet you keep on doing it,” and lifting her glass she drank the wine as if it were water.