Cheltenham hasn’t changed. Still the same elegant Regency buildings I’ve always loved, still the same tree-lined streets, still the same expansive parks. It’s me who has changed and, as Simone draws the car up close to my old home, I turn to her.
‘Thank you. I’ll be fine now.’
She reaches out and squeezes my hand. ‘I’ll walk in the park for half an hour, then wait in the car.’
I get out, close the door and walk slowly up to the house with such new-found confidence I could never have imagined. For a few moments I do nothing, just allowing the fact that I’m there to sink in. But then, out of the blue, I think of the evening Douglas and I first met. I was eighteen. It was midsummer, one of those perfect warm nights. The kind that leaves you aching with the scent of honeysuckle and roses in full bloom and longing for the night to last for ever. My father had thrown a party for friends and neighbours as they used to do each year when my mother was alive.
I spotted Douglas before he even noticed me and inexplicably couldn’t take my eyes off him. He was tall and academic-looking, certainly not the type to set a young girl’s heart fluttering. But when I sat on a bench at the back of the garden, hidden away from the main crowd, he came across and asked if he could join me. His smile was sincere and there was a kind of expressiveness in his voice as he introduced himself and asked my name. My heart did flutter but I managed to reply and smile back. Once the rest of the party faded into the background and only the two of us remained, we sat for a long while, talking and laughing, and he asked if he might call on me the next day. I went to sleep hugging myself and knowing something special was going to happen. Whatever it was we both felt so keenly that first evening, it quickly grew into love, and I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this man whose dancing eyes, behind his serious-looking spectacles, spoke of hidden passion.
The sound of laughter in the park brings me back to the present. I knock and wait. After what seems an interminable amount of time, I hear footsteps and then Mrs Wilkes opens the door. With raised brows she mutters an unconvincing welcome and ushers me in. It makes me wonder if Douglas has even told her to expect me. Then she indicates I should wait in the formal drawing room. I feel more anxious now I’m inside the house, but can’t let myself succumb to nerves, so I don’t sit but slip over to the window instead. I had forgotten how different the view is from down here. I can’t see as much as I used to from upstairs, and what used to be my window on the world.
When Douglas enters I notice he’s not smiling, and he looks much older.
‘Won’t you sit, Diana? Mrs Wilkes will bring us tea in a moment. So –’ and now he gives me a brief smile – ‘how have you been?’
I smile back at him. ‘As I said in my letter, I’m enormously much recovered and longing to see Annabelle. Doctor Gilbert is a genius.’
He nods. ‘I’m exceedingly glad to hear it.’
‘And how is our daughter?’ I say brightly.
‘She’s well. But this is rather tricky, Diana. You recall our agreement?’ He has spoken noticeably slowly, and I wonder what it signifies.
‘Of course. I was to stay away,’ I say, still bright.
‘Exactly.’
I give him a broad smile and keep my tone light. ‘But I’m better now and that changes everything.’
He narrows his eyes and looks uncomfortable. ‘No, Diana, I’m sorry but it changes nothing.’
I blink rapidly and try to ignore the first hint that this isn’t going to go well. Surely, he can’t mean it? I wait but he says nothing more, so I lean forward as if to encourage him. In the end it is I who speaks.
‘Don’t be silly, Douglas. I’m different now and naturally I have a right to see my girl.’ I glance about in excitement. ‘Is she here? In my letter I told you I wanted to see her today.’
‘She is a weekly boarder at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, so no, she is not here.’
‘But, Douglas –’
He holds up a hand, and I sense a hesitancy he is trying to conceal. ‘It really is quite impossible for you to see Annabelle.’
I feel as if he has punched me in the stomach. ‘Why?’
He tilts his head as if scrutinizing me, then speaks carefully, enunciating every word. ‘Let me finish. If you remember, we agreed that after some time had elapsed I would tell her you had died.’
‘Don’t speak to me as if I were stupid.’
‘Diana, she thinks you’re dead. I told her four years ago. She has adjusted to the fact. Got over it.’ Now he’s firm, decided, rigid, more like the Douglas he became later in our marriage.
My heart pounds in horrified alarm. Dear God, he can’t mean it. He can’t. I reel at the dreadfulness of what he’s saying but will not let him browbeat me. ‘For heaven’s sake, I was sick when I agreed.’
‘I’m sorry, my dear, she’s thriving now, and I feel it would undo all the good work we have done with her if you came back, suddenly alive. It would be too unsettling for her after all this time.’ His voice is hard, brooking no argument. But I will argue. I will. And I clench my fists.
‘But, Douglas, this is insane! I’m her mother. We can think of something to tell her. You were mistaken about my death. Misinformed or something. There has to be a way.’
He shakes his head and speaks quietly as if to defuse my anger. ‘I really must insist we stick to the letter of our agreement.’
As Mrs Wilkes carries in the tea tray, his words hit home. I feel myself beginning to shrink so to prevent it I get to my feet, stand tall, and take a few steps away to gaze out of the window again while calming my breathing. After a moment I glance back to see Mrs Wilkes pour us both a cup and then leave the room.
‘Biscuit?’ he says and holds up a plate. ‘Do come and sit down again. They are Mrs Wilkes’s favourite recipe.’
‘I couldn’t give a damn about her wretched biscuits!’ I say, angry and staying where I am. ‘I want to see Annabelle.’
He puts down the plate, gets up and walks across to me but I turn my back on him. ‘You need to understand, Annabelle is fifteen now and very settled. I can’t have her life disrupted. Surely you see that?’
I spin round. ‘No, I don’t see. You can’t stop her seeing her mother. I won’t move from this spot and if you force me out I’ll fight it in the courts.’
‘You’re not thinking straight.’
I can’t help snorting. ‘That’s exactly what you used to say if I disagreed with you on anything. Anything at all. You haven’t changed, but I have. And for the first time in years I am thinking clearly. It’s you who is not.’
He shakes his head and I can see his inflexibility growing stronger. How stubborn he is. I’d almost forgotten.
‘You’ve been away for six years. You would lose your case and, anyway, think of the effect on Annabelle.’
I glare at him and raise my voice, though I know of old if I shout at him it will only make things worse. ‘I won’t be bullied. If you refuse to allow me to see her, I’ll write to her at school! You can’t stop me doing that.’
He almost laughs. ‘Really, Diana, think how she would feel. And I can easily get the school to intercept her mail if it is in her best interests. And it is. You must see that it is.’
‘No, I don’t see. She’s my daughter, Douglas. I’ve already lost one daughter.’
‘We both lost Elvira,’ he says more quietly but I won’t respond to that.
‘How could you make me agree never to see my child when I was so ill? It was utterly unfeeling.’
He’s speaking fast now, animated, becoming angry, something he hates to be. ‘Listen to me. It wasn’t meant to be cruel. I thought it was for the best and I still do. Can you not imagine the distress when Annabelle is told her dead mother suddenly isn’t so dead? It’s taken so long for her to have become as settled as she is now.’
I feel my eyes heat up but then I straighten my back. I absolutely will not cry in front of him. ‘And that’s your final word?’
He nods. ‘I’m delighted you’re feeling so much better, believe me, but I’m afraid it has to be, at least while she is still a child. I’m sorry, Diana.’
I feel his tension as he carries on as he has always carried on, but the words I want to say die in my mouth. I think long and hard before I speak, remembering how it felt during the last few years I was living here. How trapped I’d been, going crazy all alone in my room. How disturbing it had been for our daughter. What an awful mess we all were in. Eventually I reach the conclusion that Douglas might be right. It hurts so much. I feel a stone lodging in my chest, twisting and turning and crushing my breath. I chew the inside of my cheek in the unlikely hope that this lesser pain will stave off the overwhelming sorrow I know will come. I do not know how I will ever bear it, but I cannot cause my daughter any more distress. She’s been through enough, we all have, and, terrible, terrible thought though it is, maybe I really must relinquish my role as her mother.
‘Diana?’ he says.
‘Well, I really am not the woman I used to be,’ is all I eventually come out with. It doesn’t go anywhere near articulating everything I’ve been thinking but it is true. I want to say we all change, don’t we, become different from how we were, maybe even from day to day. I am different and glad of it, but Douglas can’t see it. He wants everything to stay the same.
Instead of saying that, I nod, close to tears. ‘I will accept your decision … for now, at least. But there is something I still need to ask.’
He places a hand on my arm and the physical contact brings on a storm of memories.
‘Douglas, why did you have an affair while I was pregnant with Elvira? I never understood. We loved each other, didn’t we?’
He looks ashamed, as if I’ve caught him out, his face blanching and his lips tightening in shock. He trembles as he speaks. ‘You … you were expecting our child. I didn’t want … well, you know.’
‘You didn’t want to touch me? That’s what you’re saying?’
‘I didn’t want to hurt you … or the baby.’
‘And yet you did in a far worse way. You should have told me how you felt. You never told me how you felt.’
‘I didn’t know how,’ he whispers.
But I am not finished. ‘I always believed it was my fault. Something I’d done wrong. I carried that burden for years.’
He doesn’t answer but he deflates further and won’t meet my eyes.
‘But it wasn’t my fault, was it?’
He shakes his head and then he looks at me with such anguish in his eyes. ‘I’m sorry. It shouldn’t have happened. Not at all. I was arrogant enough to believe if I … if I met my needs elsewhere it would be better for you.’
‘And yet you broke my heart. Why do you think I became so dejected?’
A short silence as I watch him struggle.
‘And you still blame me for my illness?’ I say, suddenly numb with grief.
He speaks softly when he replies. ‘Not blame, Diana, not for that. Pity. That’s what I felt … What I still feel.’
‘Pity?’
‘And an abiding sense of loss.’
I think about it. ‘We both lost, didn’t we?’
He nods slowly and as I witness the immense weight of sadness in his eyes my anger dissolves a little.
‘Do you blame me for Elvira? Do you still think it was something to do with me?’
He shakes his head. ‘No, I never believed that.’
‘Do you remember nothing of how we once were?’ I say. ‘Do you remember us?’
His eyes soften still further and I see something of the man I used to love but I know he won’t change his mind about Annabelle.
‘Of course, you must know I do,’ he says. ‘But now I am sure you will place our daughter’s needs above your own, as I must too.’
He touches my cheek, oh so gently, and I see his eyes are moist. I decide I must bide my time. Maybe one day, when she’s older, I will see my girl.
‘Have you a photograph of her as she is now?’
He walks across to the bureau and pulls out a folder, then withdraws a single photograph and hands it to me. Now I really struggle to hold back the tears as I hunger for my daughter. She has become the spitting image of me at the same age. I trace the outline of her face with my fingertips. ‘Can I keep this, please?’
He hesitates for a second, then agrees.
I turn to leave but pause and hold out my hand. ‘Goodbye, Douglas,’ I say, and I don’t know why but the poignant look in his eyes tells me I will never see my husband again.