CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Where could Gracie be? Tom thought, as he knocked on the front door of Templeton Hall for what felt like the hundredth time. He’d knocked on the back door, each of the lower windows, the stables apartment, then returned to the front door, but there was no answer. He’d started to worry when he first realised there was no sign of a car, but he’d convinced himself that perhaps Hope had taken it somewhere. Or they’d both driven into Castlemaine for something. An hour later, he was still there, still waiting, still knocking.

Only then did he remember. He still had Hope’s number. He reached for his phone and dialled. It rang eight times before a haughty, slurred voice answered.

‘Who is this? Have you any idea of the time?’

‘Hope, it’s Tom Donovan.’

‘I don’t care who it is. How dare you ring me in the middle of the night.’

‘Hope, this is Tom Donovan calling from Templeton Hall. In Australia. Aren’t you here too?’

A long, dramatic sigh. ‘No, sadly I’m not, Tom Donovan. I am, however, in a private hospital in London with a broken leg and I don’t mind telling you I’m extremely pissed off about it.’

Was she drunk? Stoned? She was definitely slurring. He tried again. ‘Hope, I’m at Templeton Hall —’

‘You are? I’m glad someone is. It’d be a ghost town otherwise. Or do I mean ghost hall?’ She started to laugh.

‘Hope, please!’ He had to speak up to be heard. ‘I’m looking for Gracie. She’s not here.’

‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

‘Where is she?’

‘How should I know? She could be in Timbuktu by now.’

‘Please, Hope. Where is she?’

‘No need to shout, Tom Donovan. I don’t know, I told you. She didn’t specify …’ it took her several tries to say the word properly, ‘where she was going next.’

‘When did she leave here?’

‘God knows. I’m all mixed up with the time difference. At least Gracie rang at a respectable hour.’

‘What did she say to you, Hope? When Gracie rang you, what did she say?’

Another sigh. ‘She rang me to tell me she’d decided she couldn’t stay at the Hall on her own, too many memories or some such thing, at which point I told her that alas, I wouldn’t be arriving there myself now either, at least not until this stupid leg of mine had healed. Still, what’s a few months’ wait in an international expansion plan? It will all work out, I’m sure of it.’

‘Hope, please. Where did Gracie go?’

‘I. Don’t. Know. She. Didn’t. Say. Aren’t you listening to me? All she said was that she was going to drive back to Melbourne, find a hotel —’

‘There are hundreds of hotels in Melbourne. I’ll never find her.’ Tom was thinking aloud.

‘You could always ring her, I suppose. Ask her which one she’s staying in.’

‘You have Gracie’s number? She has a phone?’

‘Of course she has a phone. Of course I have her number.’

Tom’s hands were shaking as he wrote down Gracie’s number. After a hurried goodbye, he took a moment to compose himself. With hands still shaking, he dialled her number.

Gracie was walking in the Botanic Gardens in the centre of Melbourne. She’d found a small hotel around the corner and booked in for four nights. She’d at first considered changing her flight and returning to London immediately. What was the point of staying here now that Hope wasn’t coming? But Hope hadn’t seemed to care whether she stayed on or not. In fact, Hope with her broken leg had sounded suspiciously carefree, as if she’d either hit the bottle again or taken far too many painkillers.

‘Live it up, Gracie,’ she’d slurred. ‘Go and see Audrey and Bip-pie in Auckland if you want to. On me. Within limits. Keep receipts. See you when you get back. Sorry about the wasted trip. We’ll do it again some day. Don’t know when, don’t know where —’

She was still singing when Gracie hung up.

The phone in her handbag rang again now. Gracie took it out, hoping it wasn’t her aunt changing her mind. It wasn’t Hope. Gracie didn’t recognise the number.

‘Gracie speaking.’

‘Gracie, it’s Tom.’

‘Tom?’

‘Where are you?’

‘What?’

‘Gracie, where are you? Where exactly are you?’

‘I’m in Melbourne. In the Botanic Gardens.’

‘What can you see?’

She looked around her. ‘A pond. A café. The main gate.’

‘Gracie, stay there, would you? Don’t move. Please, Gracie. Stay right where you are.’

‘Why?’

‘I have to talk to you. I’m on my way. I’ll be there as quickly as I can. Ninety minutes. Two hours at the most.’

‘But aren’t you in Perth?’

‘I was. Now I’m at Templeton Hall.’

‘Templeton Hall?’

‘Gracie, please, don’t go anywhere. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

He hung up before she had a chance to ask anything more.

An hour later, Gracie hadn’t done what Tom asked.

Please, Gracie. Stay right where you are, he’d said. She hadn’t stopped moving since he called. So far she’d changed tables in the small café four times. She’d been across to the gate of the gardens three times, checking the road in both directions. Which way would he come from? How long would he be? How could she just stay still and wait?

She had to check the call log on her phone to confirm she hadn’t imagined it. Forty minutes after his call, a beep on her phone alerted her to a text message:

I’m not far away now. Please, Gracie, wait for me. Tom

Her head was filled with questions. What did he want to tell her? How had he got her number? Would Emily be with him again?

Exactly ninety minutes after he’d phoned some sixth sense made her look towards the gate. It was him. She didn’t move from her table. She waited, watching. His limp was more obvious now. He didn’t have the stick with him. He was wearing a blue T-shirt, dark jeans. His hair was tousled.

He looked beautiful.

She stood up as he came closer. Neither of them was smiling.

The moment he reached her he leaned down and kissed her on the lips.

‘Tom!’ She stepped back, shocked. ‘What are you doing?’

‘What I wanted to do at the Hall the other day. What I’ve wanted to do for eight years.’

‘But Emily …’

‘She’s not here.’

She stepped back further. ‘If you think I’ll let you cheat on her —’

‘She won’t mind, I promise you. She’s busy enough with her husband and baby son.’

‘You’re having an affair with a married woman?’

‘No, Gracie.’ He laughed then. ‘Emily and I are just friends. That’s all we’ve ever been. I’m friends with her husband too.’

Gracie wanted to start this all over again. Nothing was making sense. ‘But I don’t understand. How can you be engaged to her one day and not the next?’

‘It’s a long story. A short story.’ His smile vanished. ‘Gracie, I didn’t even think to ask you or Hope. Are you married? Engaged? Seeing anyone?’

‘No, of course I’m not.’ He looked as if he was about to kiss her again. She had to slow this down. ‘Tom, what’s going on?’

‘What should have gone on eight years ago.’ He took her hand, led her back to the table, sat opposite her. He didn’t let go of her hand. His expression was serious. ‘Gracie, I spoke to Nina last night. I know everything now. About the letters you wrote to me after the accident. The letters she never passed on to me.’

Gracie went still. ‘You didn’t get my letters? Any of them?’

He shook his head. ‘She threw them away, Gracie. All of them. And that wasn’t all.’ He told her about Nina’s other lie. The fabricated conversation, that Gracie had told her at the hospital in Italy that she’d decided she could never see Tom again.

Gracie went pale, then red, then pale again. Shocked, she took her hand from his, sat back in her chair. ‘But I didn’t even see Nina at the hospital. And I would never have said that. I’d have done anything to see you, anything to help you.’

‘I know that now. Eight years too late, but I know it now.’

There was suddenly so much to say but no way to begin. A long moment passed as they just looked at each other.

Gracie spoke first. She knew her voice was strangely polite, her expression wary, cautious. It was as if this was now their first meeting, that the reunion at the Hall with Emily by his side hadn’t happened. Above them, the sky was threatening rain. There were other people at tables a short distance away. Yet it felt as though they were alone, as though the next few minutes could change the rest of their lives. She searched for something to say, even as a hundred questions crowded into her mind. She wanted – needed – to know every detail of the last eight years of his life.

She had to start somewhere. ‘How are you, Tom?’

He gave the briefest of smiles, as if he understood all that lay behind those four words. ‘I’m fine, Gracie. I’m good.’

There was too much distance between them. She wanted to reach across to him, to take his hand again, to touch him, but it wasn’t right, not yet. ‘What happened, Tom? After the accident? With your back? With your life? With you?’ Once she’d started, she suddenly couldn’t seem to stop. ‘Have you been a journalist long? What paper are you with? Do you travel a lot? Do you live here in Melbourne?’

He smiled, laughed even, and shook his head. ‘No, Gracie, please. You first. What happened to you? What have you been doing? Are you still living in London? Did you go back to university? How is your family?’

She shook her head, unable to even begin to answer. All she had been doing for eight years was missing him. Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. She hurriedly brushed them away. ‘Why, Tom? Why did Nina do it to us?’

His smile disappeared. ‘I don’t know. I don’t care.’

‘You don’t care?’

‘All I know now is I don’t want to see her again. I can never trust her again. How could I? How can she have done that to you, to me? Lied to us. Not just once, but again and again, telling me you didn’t want to see me, telling me she had posted my letters to you, that —’

‘Your letters to me? You wrote to me too?’

He stared at her. ‘Of course I did. Of course.’

There was silence again, as they could only look at each other. When Tom spoke again, his voice was quiet. ‘Gracie, the letters you wrote to me. What did they say?’

Her eyes filled with tears again. ‘That I loved you. That I missed you so much. That I was so sorry about the accident. That I knew it was my fault but I would have done anything, anything, I could to change it or help you. I must have written dozens of times. Hundreds. I don’t know for sure. I wrote for six months, until I got Nina’s, the one —’

‘Nina wrote to you? From Australia?’

Gracie nodded.

‘What did she say, Gracie? Please, I have to know.’

‘She asked me … she told me to stop writing. That you could never forgive me.’

A flash of anger again. ‘I? I could never forgive you? But there was nothing to forgive. It was an accident, Gracie. It wasn’t your fault. I always knew that.’

‘Nina meant you and her. The two of you. And it was my fault, Tom. It was.’

‘It wasn’t your fault and it had nothing to do with her. It was you and me, Gracie. Us. Between us. She had no right.’ He stood up then, his hands clenched on the table in front of them.

This time Gracie didn’t hesitate. She reached for his hands, held them tight for a moment. Again, that feeling that her next words were so important, that they could change all that lay ahead of them both. ‘She did, Tom. She did have a right. She’s your mother.’

He shook his head. ‘No, Gracie, you’re wrong. How can you even try to understand what she did to us?’

She had to try, even if she was still reeling from seeing him, from what he had told her. She told him the truth. ‘I have to, Tom. I have to try and understand it. I have to believe she did it because she thought it was the best thing for you. Otherwise it hurts even more. Makes even less sense.’

‘Of course it doesn’t make sense. How can it? Gracie, she kept us apart for eight years. It would have been longer, it could have been forever if Hope —’ He broke off then, running his fingers through his hair. As she watched, as she stared up at him, his eyes suddenly filled with tears. ‘It’s too much, Gracie. Seeing you again. Nina’s lies …’

She moved then, closing the gap between them, straight to him, putting her arms around him. The feel, the warmth, even the smell of him was so instantly, gloriously familiar. ‘It’s okay, Tom. It’s okay.’

He spoke into her hair, his arms tight around her too. ‘How can it be? She took eight years from us. Nothing can ever excuse that, or change that. Nothing.’

She held him closer, told him again that it didn’t matter, it would be all right, everything would be all right. They were both crying now. If anyone was watching, they were oblivious. The rain was falling. They didn’t feel it.

‘It’s all right, Tom. It’s all right now. It is.’ She said it again and again, holding him, feeling his arms holding her so tightly in return. A minute passed, two, three.

He moved back from her, just slightly, enough to be able to look down at her. ‘Gracie, how can you be so sure? So calm? Aren’t you angry with her too? You must be. You have to be.’

She shook her head, gazing up at him, her eyes still bright with her tears. ‘Tomorrow I might be. Tonight I might be. But how can I be angry now?’ She reached up and touched his face. ‘I can’t tell you how many times I wished that I would be here like this with you, close to you, touching you. Holding you.’ Her arms tightened around his back, and she felt the strength of his body through his T-shirt. ‘And now I am. You’re here. We’re here together.’ She smiled then. A big beautiful smile. ‘It’s all right now, Tom. It wasn’t, but now it is. Now it will be. Can’t you see that?’

He laughed then, actually laughed, shaking his head as he gazed down at her, his face filled with love and something else – a kind of wonder. He tightened his arms around her. ‘Gracie, I’m sorry. That deserves an answer, a proper answer, but I have to kiss you again first. Just for a second.’

He leaned down and kissed her for more than a second.

She felt it immediately, that slow molten feeling in every part of her body, stronger than ever. It was a shock to step back from him, to realise they were in public, that people were watching, that the light rain had become heavier, that it was now coming down in torrents around them.

His house was only ten minutes’ drive away. Her hotel room was closer. They went there. There was more talking to be done, eight years worth of talking to be done, but the moment they came into her room, to see the rain falling through the trees outside, to see the glow of her bedside lamps, the bed warm and inviting with its red covers, they moved back into each other’s arms. The talking could wait.

Less than twenty-four hours later, they were both at Melbourne Airport. Tom was catching the early flight back to Perth. Neither of them had slept much. They had made love, talked, laughed, cried, held each other and made love again.

He had offered to stay longer, to resign, to never write a word about cricket again if that was what she wanted, but she insisted he go back to Perth. She knew where he was now, he knew where she was. She wasn’t going anywhere. She would stay in Australia for as long as she could. And while he was in Perth there was something she’d decided to do. Something she had to do.

As she stood in Tom’s arms at his departure gate, he told her again, as he’d told her since she made the suggestion, that she didn’t have to do it, on her own or at all. Nina was his mother.

‘I need to see her, Tom. I have to. And I think it might be better this way.’ Gracie felt strangely sure of it.

In the night, their bodies entwined, words and kisses being exchanged in turn, they’d spoken again and again about what Nina had done. Each time, they’d asked the same question. Why?

‘She said she did it to protect me,’ Tom said, his voice soft in the darkness. ‘She was worried I’d be hurt even more. She thought it was for the best.’

Gracie was still more confused than angry. Perhaps the anger was still to come. ‘But she knew me. She must have known I would never hurt you. That I loved you.’

Wrapped in each other’s arms, it felt miraculous to talk of their love again, to know that the eight years’ separation hadn’t changed how they felt.

‘Are you sure you want to see her?’ Tom asked once more, as they stood at the gate. ‘You don’t have to, Gracie. I mean it. I’d understand it if you never wanted to speak to her again.’

‘I need to, Tom. I need her to tell me why she did it.’

‘Wait until I get back. Wait until we can go together.’

She shook her head. ‘If I don’t go and see her as soon as I can, then I think I never will.’

He touched the side of her face, kissed her again. The softest of whispers in her ear, ‘I love you, Gracie Templeton.’

She didn’t need to tell him how she felt. She’d told him over and over during the night. But she told him again now too.

She stayed at the gate until Tom had gone from sight. He’d be back in three days’ time and she’d be there waiting for him. Now, though, she needed to make a phone call. It was early but she had to do it now. She took out her mobile and dialled the number Tom had given her. Her heart was thumping. It rang once, twice, a third time before it was answered.

‘Nina Donovan speaking.’

‘Nina, it’s Gracie. Gracie Templeton.’

An intake of breath. Almost a sob. ‘Gracie? Where are you? Gracie, I’m so —’

Gracie couldn’t talk to her here, like this. ‘I need to come and see you.’

They arranged the time and place. In five hours’ time, at Nina’s house in Brunswick. Gracie hung up before either of them said anything else.

Within an hour, she was back at her hotel. In the taxi from the airport, she’d realised she needed help. In her room, despite the time, knowing it was late, she phoned her mother in London.

She wasn’t sure how much she would tell her. As soon as she heard her mother’s voice, though, as soon as Gracie assured her she was fine, she told Eleanor everything. Her mother’s joy for her, for her and Tom, was immediate. Her anger, her confusion at what Nina had done, followed as quickly. Gracie interrupted her, with question after question.

‘Why would she have done it, Mum? Hurt not just me but Tom as well? I need to try and understand before I see her.’

‘You’re going to see her? On your own?’

‘Today.’

‘Gracie, is that wise?’ There was worry in Eleanor’s voice.

‘I have to, Mum. But I need your help first. You’re my mother. Would you have done the same thing, if the positions had been reversed? If I’d been the one badly hurt?’

There was silence for a few moments before Eleanor spoke. ‘Gracie, it was a difficult time. Decisions made in the heat of it all, things said, words spoken that can never be unsaid. We were all in shock, remember. It was bad enough for me, but Nina had to fly across the world, not knowing what awaited her —’

‘But it was afterwards that she lied about my letters, that she told Tom I never wanted to see him again. She told Tom that she was worried I would hurt him somehow.’

‘Every mother feels that way for her children, Gracie. Even if we’re mistaken sometimes. No one wants the people they love to feel any pain.’

‘But Nina was my friend. She must have known I’d never deliberately hurt Tom, or her. That’s what I can’t understand. At first, yes, but not to tell him about my letters for eight years?’

Eleanor’s voice was soft. ‘Tom was the centre of Nina’s life for so many years, Gracie. Perhaps she did regret her lies, I don’t know. But sometimes it’s impossible to see a way of fixing your mistakes, to admitting you’ve made an error of judgement, especially when love like that is involved. Especially if you think you’ve done it for the right reasons.’

‘But what could be right about it? What reason could she have? You’d never have done something like that, would you? Lied to me for so long, even if you felt you needed to protect me from something?’

‘It’s not that black and white, Gracie. Nothing ever is.’ She paused. ‘But yes, I’d always do anything I could to protect you too. To keep you safe. I can’t begin to describe the feeling, but it’s like an urge, an instinct, to give you the best life, the happiest life I can.’

‘That’s why you didn’t tell me about you and Dad for so many years? The truth about all the money? The reason you split up? To protect me?’

Another long silence from Eleanor. ‘That was part of it, Gracie, yes. I couldn’t tell you everything. You were too young. You would have worried too much. And I still think that was the right decision.’

Gracie suddenly needed to keep talking, to know everything. ‘But how did you know when it wasn’t going to work out with Dad? When it was time to stop trying?’

‘It wasn’t one moment, Gracie. In the same way it wasn’t one thing that made me fall in love with him. Many things happened to bring it to an end.’

‘The money problems?’

‘They didn’t help.’

‘Then what? If all you loved about him at first didn’t change, and your personalities didn’t change, couldn’t you have stayed together, enjoyed what you could about each other?’

‘It’s not always that simple, Gracie. I had to decide how much I could forgive and I finally realised I’d reached my quota.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Across the world, in her London living room, Eleanor realised the conversation was taking a dangerous turn. She needed to think quickly before she spoke again. ‘Gracie, you know, I think, that your father and I had difficulties in our marriage even before we went to Templeton Hall.’

‘I guessed. And I’d hear you fighting. Charlotte used to hint at things, too. But you still stayed together for so long. Was it just for us? Or because you still loved him?’

‘I loved your father very much, Gracie. Too much, probably. But the problem with Henry is he always wanted everything. Lots of money, big houses, a big career.’ Eleanor hesitated, then decided it was time to be as honest as she could be. ‘And not just me, I discovered, but other women as well.’

‘Women? He had affairs?’

‘I think so, yes.’

‘Oh, Mum, I’m so sorry.’

Eleanor smiled. ‘Gracie, it’s all right. It is. It’s all in the past now.’

‘Did you know any of the other women?’

‘Most of them, no.’ She hesitated. ‘One, yes.’

There was an intake of breath from Gracie. ‘It was Hope, wasn’t it? Dad had an affair with Hope.’

‘No, Gracie, it wasn’t Hope. She liked to tell people that they had, but it wasn’t true.’

‘But one of the women was a friend of yours? Is that what you mean?’

‘I thought she was, yes.’ Eleanor stopped there. ‘It doesn’t matter now, anyway. It’s all a long time ago now. And if it did matter once, it doesn’t now, for so many reasons.’

Gracie’s voice changed. ‘It was Nina, wasn’t it? Mum, is that what you’re saying? Did something happen between Dad and Nina when we were all living in the Hall? Would that explain so many things? Why she might have done —’

This time, Eleanor didn’t hesitate to lie. ‘No, Gracie, it wasn’t Nina. And I’m not going to tell you who it was.’ She paused, before making another decision. ‘But there is something your father did that I need to tell you about. Something that will affect you more than the others. I’ve only just learnt about it myself, but if this isn’t the right time, Gracie, I want you to say.’

‘No, tell me, please.’

This time Eleanor didn’t hold anything back. She told Gracie everything, about finding the lease, about contacting Henry, about all she now knew about Templeton Hall.

Gracie was quiet for a long moment when Eleanor finished talking. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she finally said. ‘None of it was true? We don’t own Templeton Hall? We’ve never owned it?’

Eleanor already regretted telling her. ‘I’m afraid not, Gracie. Your father invented the whole inheritance story, from start to finish.’

There was another long silence and then Gracie started to laugh. Really laugh.

‘Gracie? Are you okay? Are you all right?’

‘I am. I am. And I don’t think I’m surprised about it. I really don’t.’ She laughed again. ‘It actually makes sense. Being there this week, seeing it all again, it all felt like some sort of a dream, make-believe. And that’s why, isn’t it? It felt make-believe because it was make-believe.’

‘You really don’t mind? I was worried that of all of you, you’d be the most upset. Gracie, I mustn’t know you at all.’

‘I’m too happy today to be upset.’ Another laugh. ‘But now everything makes sense, all those heirlooms and paintings of our ancestors appearing out of nowhere, all the changing stories … None of it was true?’

‘Not as far as I can tell. If it’s any consolation, Gracie, your father fooled me completely too. He told me he didn’t think I’d agree to moving the whole family to Australia if there wasn’t a family link, if it wasn’t an inherited property.’

‘Was he right? Would you have agreed to go if you’d known he was just leasing it?’

‘Of course not.’

They both laughed then.

‘Are you furious with him?’ Gracie asked.

‘On one hand, completely and utterly. On the other hand, no. What’s the point? I think I’m running out of fury, Gracie. The older I get, the more I realise I’m not in charge of the world or the people in it. I can’t control them any more than I want them to try and control me.’

‘Try and tell Charlotte that. In fact, wait until Charlotte hears about this.’

‘I’ve told Henry he has to tell her. And Audrey, too. As for Spencer, he happened to walk in on us today so he already knows. Not that he seemed to mind —’

‘Spencer’s back in London?’

‘And back living with me for a little while, yes. His Irish girlfriend has apparently had enough of him. Though I did hear him ringing Hope and offering his services as a highly paid nurse, so I suspect he won’t be with me for long.’ Before Gracie had a chance to comment, Eleanor continued. ‘That’s enough talking, my Gracie, for you and for me. I love you and I’m so very happy for you and Tom and please give him my warmest wishes.’ She paused. ‘And I’ll be thinking of you with Nina today.’

‘Thanks, Mum. For everything.’

‘I don’t think I was much help.’

‘You were. I promise.’ A pause. ‘Is there anything you want me to say to her from you?’

Eleanor didn’t need to think about that. ‘No, Gracie, there’s not. Nothing at all.’

Three hours later, Gracie was in a taxi on her way to Nina’s house in Brunswick. She’d spoken to Tom before she left her hotel. He’d just landed in Perth. When he asked her how she was feeling, she told him the truth. She was so happy and sad and confused, all at once, all the different feelings swirling inside her. There was anger now too. The more she’d thought about it, the more she’d realised what Nina had done to her, to Tom.

‘She’s left message after message on my phone,’ Tom told her. ‘I haven’t called her back. I can’t talk to her yet.’

Gracie didn’t ask what Nina had said, or how she’d sounded. She didn’t want to know. She needed to see her for herself. ‘I’ll ring you afterwards, as soon as I can,’ Gracie promised.

She stared out at the passing Melbourne streets now, at unfamiliar street names, rows of shops, neat houses, each on their own block of land, all so different from London. The sky was grey, a soft rain falling. She asked the driver how far away they were. Fifteen minutes at the most, he said. She glanced at her watch. She was on time. She’d be early, in fact.

After talking to her mother, she’d tried to rest, even for a little while. She and Tom had barely slept the previous night. Sleep proved impossible. Caught midway between happiness and anxiety, her thoughts were tumbled and tormented as she tried to prepare herself for this meeting. She wasn’t even sure if she could picture Nina any more. It was sixteen years since they’d seen each other. Sixteen years and a lifetime. She thought of the years at Templeton Hall, her friendship with Nina, how much it had meant, how sad she’d been to leave. Then her thoughts leapt forward, to Tom, to the moment they’d met at Paddington Station, her waiting for him, wearing the red coat he’d always loved. Their days in London together, travelling together: Scotland, Ireland, France, Italy. Image after image flashed into her mind, good times dissolving into the worst of times, the months after the crash, the crash itself …

She glanced at her watch, asked the driver again. Ten minutes away. She tried to imagine how Nina might be feeling now. Angry with her still? Defiant about what she had done? She hadn’t sounded angry on the phone. She had sounded upset. She hadn’t sounded like the Nina Gracie remembered.

More memories flashed into her mind, this time from childhood. Visiting Nina with her father and Spencer that day, asking to borrow Tom. Having cups of tea with her. Painting with her. Talking to her, so much, about everything, calling to see her every day, sometimes more than once a day. She remembered the day of Tom’s cricket match, the party they’d held for him … They’d held the party for Tom that day? Not Nina? Why? That thought sparked other images, of Tom spending so much time at the Hall. He and Spencer running riot, up to mischief all the time, at the dam, on the roof, in their tree house … Tom had practically moved in with the Templetons. He’d loved it at the Hall. He’d told her as much, as they’d travelled around Europe together. They’d talked a lot about those times, their shared memories another bond between them.

Now, though, Gracie tried to imagine how Nina might have felt back then. It must have been hard for her. If she’d had a husband to talk to, other children, perhaps it would have been different. Perhaps it would have been easier to share Tom. But Tom was all Nina had. The centre of her world. The person she loved most in the world. Even as a child, Gracie had somehow seen that. Now, as an adult, after her conversation with her mother, it seemed even clearer.

And if Nina had felt that way about Tom as a child, it must have been magnified a hundred-fold after the accident, when he was so badly injured. All she must have wanted to do was bring him home, keep him safe, protect him from anyone, anything, that could ever hurt him again. Protect him, especially, from the people who had caused the accident.

Protect him from the Templetons.

‘Here you are, love.’

They were in front of Nina’s house. She’d arrived.

She paid, got out, a mass of nerves now. It was a small cottage. A neat front garden. She barely noticed it as she walked up the path. It felt like the longest walk of her life.

Before she had a chance to knock, the front door opened. Nina was standing there. She was wearing a blue dress, boots, even a necklace, as if she’d dressed up especially. She looked older, but with the same dark hair, the same blue eyes.

‘Gracie …’

Gracie stopped short of the door. ‘Hello, Nina.’

There were no smiles between them. No warmth. Only wariness, Gracie realised. On both their sides. And something else coming from Nina. It was fear. She saw it in her eyes. Nina was scared of her.

Nina seemed unable to move or to speak. Gracie glanced down. The other woman’s hands were clenched.

‘May I come in?’

‘Of course. Gracie, of course.’ She stepped back and Gracie followed her, into her living room. She glanced around. It was as colourful as Nina’s farmhouse had been, as beautifully decorated as the apartment in the Hall – bright paintings, warm-hued rugs, cheerful curtains. Young Gracie would have exclaimed over them. Now, Gracie said nothing.

She turned, seeing that expression on Nina’s face again. Fear and something else. Nina looked sad. Desperately sad, and somehow defeated. As if she was waiting for one final blow. A blow from Gracie? Is that what she was expecting? A furious tirade?

This time Nina broke the silence. ‘Can I get you anything? Tea? A drink?’

Gracie shook her head. She couldn’t pretend this was a normal visit. She couldn’t even make any more polite conversation.

‘Why, Nina? Why did you do it? Not just to Tom but to me too?’

There was a split-second when she saw something flicker across Nina’s face, something raw, something almost angry, then just as quickly it disappeared. Nina seemed to crumple in front of her, down into an armchair. ‘I can’t explain, Gracie. I can’t.’

Once, Gracie would have rushed to her side, tried to console her. Now, she made herself stay still, kept her voice even. ‘You have to, Nina. You have to. We need to know.’

The ‘we’ registered. Nina looked up, her face still anguished, her eyes filled with tears. ‘Have you seen Tom?’ At Gracie’s nod, another question. ‘Is it … will it be all right between you?’

It was too new with Tom, too precious, too fragile yet. She didn’t answer. ‘Why did you do it, Nina? Why did you lie?’

‘If you had seen him, Gracie —’

‘I wanted to, Nina. I wanted to do everything I could for him.’

Nina shook her head. ‘He was a different person. He was broken. He was so frightened, in so much pain. His whole life changed in that accident, Gracie.’

‘All our lives changed, Nina.’

It was as if Nina hadn’t heard her. ‘All his life, all I’d ever wanted to do was protect him, give him the best life I could, and yet I’d failed him —’

‘It wasn’t you, Nina. It was me. I was the driver. It was my fault.’ Gracie was surprised at the strength in her own voice. She was no longer a child talking to Nina. She was an adult. The eight years of sadness, of grief, of soul-searching and worry seemed to have crystallised inside her, giving her strength, keeping her steady. ‘I hadn’t been drinking, but it was my fault. I lost concentration and I ran into the truck. It could have been me injured or Spencer hurt, but it was Tom and I will never be able to forgive myself for that. Ever. But I still need the truth from you. Why didn’t you give him my letters? Why didn’t you send his letters to me? Why did you lie to us both?’

‘I had to. I had to.’

‘No, you didn’t. I would have helped him. My whole family could have helped him.’

‘We didn’t want your help.’ Nina’s voice had sudden force. ‘Can’t you see that? He was my son, Gracie. My responsibility, not yours.’ Tears were running down Nina’s face but she didn’t wipe them away.

‘He was an adult, Nina.’ Gracie was on less firm ground now. She’d expected excuses from Nina. Not this raw feeling. ‘He wasn’t a child any more.’

‘He was still my son, Gracie. He always was my son, before your family came along and again after you all left.’ Nina stood up then too, the tears gone, the words pouring from her: sharp, angry words. ‘You Templetons always had everything, didn’t you? Whatever you wanted. All that money, all that charm, even the Hall just fell into your laps. It was always so easy for all of you, with your perfect lives, the perfect family —’

‘No, Nina!’ Gracie couldn’t let her get away with this. ‘It was never easy for us, for any of us. There was nothing perfect about any of us. Not then, not now. Why do you think I spent so much time with you, at your house? I needed someone like you in my life, Nina. And you’re wrong about the Hall falling into our laps too. I only heard the whole story today. We never owned it. We didn’t inherit it. My father leased it.’

Nina’s expression changed. ‘Leased it? It wasn’t yours? It isn’t yours?’

Gracie shook her head. ‘My father lied about it. To all of us.’

Nina’s reaction shocked her. She laughed. It wasn’t a nice laugh. ‘What a surprise.’

Gracie stared at her. The mood had changed in the room and she didn’t like it or understand it. She needed to take back control of the conversation again. ‘I’m not here to talk about the Hall, Nina. I just need to understand why you did what you did to Tom and me. Then I’ll go. You won’t ever need to see me again.’

Her words had an instant effect on Nina. ‘Gracie, I have to know. Is Tom all right? Will he ever speak to me again?’

She told the truth. ‘I don’t know.’

‘He won’t. I know he won’t.’ Nina started to cry again, talking quickly, not even looking at Gracie now. ‘He won’t answer my calls. Hilary won’t talk to me either. And I deserve it. I deserve it.’ She looked at Gracie then. ‘But at least you came to see me, Gracie. Thank you. Thank you.’

Gracie felt strangely unmoved by Nina’s tears. ‘I don’t want your thanks, Nina. I don’t even want an apology. I just need you to explain why you did it.’

‘Gracie, please, sit down. Please.’

She sat down. As Nina began to talk, Gracie didn’t move, didn’t interrupt, just watched and listened as the words poured from Nina, a tumble of words, punctuated by tears, of her fears, her loneliness, her anguish and grief after her husband died, her love for Tom, the need – the desperate, all-consuming need – to protect him from harm, to give him the best life she could. She spoke about her pride in his achievements at school, with his cricket, and the realisation that he was growing independent of her, that he wouldn’t always be the centre of her life any more, that he was growing away from her, just as happy away from her, staying with his friends, or at Templeton Hall. Especially at Templeton Hall …

She looked at Gracie directly then, meeting her eyes for the first time since she’d begun to talk. ‘I can’t expect you to understand, Gracie, the love a mother can feel for her son, but he was everything to me. He always had been, and when I saw him in the hospital in Rome, when I thought I’d almost lost him forever, I had to do everything I could for him, I had to protect him, do whatever it took —’

‘No, Nina!’ The anger inside Gracie spilled into the room with sudden ferocity. ‘You didn’t have to do it. You were wrong then and you’re wrong now. You don’t think I know how it feels to love someone and have them be taken away? To miss them so much, every single day, that it hurts?’ She couldn’t stop talking now, even as she saw Nina had more to say. ‘You think I can’t understand how you might have felt? Be feeling now? I understand more than you will ever know. I loved Tom, Nina. And he loved me. We were young, we still are young, but we knew what we felt then. We feel it still now. Whatever you tried to do to us didn’t work. Tom didn’t need your permission to be with me back then, and nor did I. We still don’t.’ She stood up then and reached for her bag.

‘Gracie, please, no. Don’t go.’ Nina’s tone was urgent. ‘I’m sorry, Gracie. I’m so very sorry for hurting you. For hurting Tom. I had so many reasons, I promise you, but I can’t … it’s not … I don’t know how to …’ She started to cry again then, sobs from deep inside her. ‘What do I do, Gracie? What do I do if he never wants to talk to me again?’

‘I’m sorry, Nina. I don’t know.’

Nina started to cry harder then, her face hidden in her hands. ‘I’m sorry, Gracie. I’m so, so sorry, for everything.’

Gracie watched for a moment. For a second, she was a child again, there with Nina sixteen years ago. She did now what she would have done then. She walked across to the other woman and for a second, just a second, touched her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry too, Nina.’

Nina was still crying when Gracie let herself out.

Three days later, Gracie was at the airport waiting for Tom’s flight from Perth to land. They’d spoken before his flight left. They’d spoken many times, every day, about her visit to Nina, about what she had said, what they had both said. Gracie had relived her meeting with Nina again and again. She’d felt rushes of anger, felt sadness, pity, so many different emotions towards her. She’d talked about it with Tom, the two of them still trying to make sense of Nina’s actions. Was understanding even possible? Was forgiveness? And if not, what was the alternative? Never speaking to Nina again? Cutting off all contact? Putting her through all the pain they’d experienced? Back and forth their conversations had gone. They’d talked about so many things, their past, the missing eight years, their future. So much seemed possible now. There were so many plans to make together. A life to make together. But each conversation had come back to Nina. What happened next with her was entirely in their hands, they realised. They could choose to hurt her, to punish her as she had hurt them. Or they could somehow keep trying to understand why she had done what she’d done. Find some way to forgive her.

That morning, Tom had rung Gracie and told her he had just spoken to his mother. He’d decided he would go and see her. Not immediately, but when the time felt right. She hadn’t asked him for more detail. Not yet. Whatever happened next had to be between him and Nina.

Now, waiting for his plane to arrive, she felt as nervous, as excited, as if this was their first reunion. She paced the terminal. She checked the monitors every five minutes, in case his plane arrived early. She sat for a few minutes at the arrivals gate before her nerves made her resume her pacing. She browsed in a bookstore, looked at souvenirs, walked past a small clothes shop.

It was there she saw it, hanging on the front rack. A red coat like the one she used to have in London. As they’d travelled together, as they’d shyly swapped stories of when they’d first fallen in love with each other, Tom had always mentioned the moment he saw her waiting for him at Paddington Station wearing her red coat. It suddenly seemed urgent that she was wearing red again this time too. She tried it on. It was a perfect fit.

She returned to the gate, this time wearing the coat. Back to the monitor. Ten minutes to go. Five minutes. Then the message the plane had landed. Would he be first out? Last?

Fifteen minutes and many travellers later, she saw him. She stepped forward, stopped, waited.

She saw him scan the groups of people waiting, saw him catch sight of her, his expression changing as he smiled, the most beautiful smile she had ever seen. He started walking towards her. She met him halfway.

Around them, other passengers smiled too at the sight of the young man and woman in each other’s arms. He was talking, then she was talking as, hand in hand, they walked together to a row of seats, sat side by side, hands still entwined.

An hour later, they were still there, still talking, the words interrupted by laughs, kisses, smiles, both of them with so much to say, so much to hear, as if there wasn’t enough time for them to say all they needed to each other.