Chapter 14: Reunions

Kent, March 1995

“Anya?”

“Who is this?” Anya had just returned from her latest trip to Fishermen Rock and she was concentrating on the mountain of post she had to deal with. Her assistant, Gemma, had ensured bills were paid, but there was still much she had to deal with after a month away in Barbados.

“Who is this?”

“David.” The voice was vaguely familiar though she couldn’t think of anyone named David who might be phoning her.

“David?”

“David George. I first met you on Charing Cross Station about 25 years ago. I know it was a long time ago but I had rather hoped you might remember me.”

“Of course I remember you Dave.” She should have recognised him. “How are you?”

“Old and respectable I’m afraid so I’ve become David.”

“Do you still see John?”

“Not a lot, we all get together every now and again with the families, you know how it is.”

“No David. I don’t.” Feeling cross with herself for being short she asked quickly, “Sorry David, I’ve just got off a long flight and I’m not thinking straight.” That was true, she was always tired after the flight, now twice as long since Concorde no longer flew, and switching back to England from the Caribbean usually took her several days.

“That’s OK. I think I understand though I’m not what you’d call a Yuppie Jetsetter myself.”

“How’s Tim? Do you still see him? Has he forgiven me for the Golf Club?” She hadn’t meant to ask about Tim, it just somehow seemed safer than asking about Geoff.

“He’s doing fine. You know Tim, he’s been putting all his energy into making even more money to make up for the vast amount he had to pay Gillian. By the way, well done about that, we’d all been trying to get them apart for years. She really wasn’t any good for him.”

“So Esme said. Lovely as it is to hear from you David…”

“… why am I phoning you?”

“And how did you track me down. I didn’t think anyone knew where I was.”

“Well it wasn’t difficult. I knew your maiden name, remember, and your date of birth and Anya Cave is not that usual a name.”

“But why?”

“It’s Geoff.”

It was an answer Anya had not expected. “Geoff?” She felt the shivers of goose bumps course through her body, along her arms, even down her legs. She had a premonition of fear.

“He’s ill.”

“How ill?”

“Very.”

“He was fine last year. He was fine at the Golf Club Ball.” She was surprised to hear the panic in her voice.

“No he wasn’t Anya, and that was over two years ago. He hadn’t been feeling well for a long time but he didn’t go to see a doctor until the autumn of ’92. He was already having treatment at the time of your Ball and it was in and out of hospital all of ‘93. There came a point last year when he said the treatment had to stop. It was making him feel dreadful and he knew it was only postponing things. He knew the doctors weren’t going to be able to stop the inevitable.”

“The inevitable?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Oh God Dave. Let me sit down. I’m sorry. I’ve no right to be so upset.”

“Perhaps you still care for him Anya? He certainly has never stopped caring about you.”

”No?” Anya sounded sceptical but David’s words only reinforced what she had felt when they had sat so comfortably together at the Golf Club bar. “What about Fiona?”

“She buggered off a year or so ago, as soon as it started being difficult for Geoff. She really was, is, a cow. They were never happy you know, she always did her best to make his life miserable. He told me she hated sex, she lay there frigid and immobile.”

“Do I want to know this?”

“I think you need to.”

“OK.” Anya wondered why.

“You need to know she’s gay, always has been apparently. She only went along with her mother’s plan to marry Geoff for respectability and to have a child. She told him humans were like dogs, females should be bred at least once or their temperament was unsound. She said three litters was the optimum for dogs that’s why she had three children.”

“God that sounds awful!”

“She told Geoff that she had married him only to get her own back at him for taking her virginity all those years ago. She only let him make love, if that’s what you could call it, when she wanted a child. Then, when it was obvious Geoff was ill, she gave up any pretence. She told him only women were worth caring about and buggered off with her girlfriend.”

A multitude of scenes ran through Anya’s head. She had always egged Geoff on, it was she who had made him break down the citadel that had been Fiona’s virginity, it was her fault she had hated him so much. It was her fault he had had all those years in a loveless and hateful marriage. “He hadn’t guessed?”

“He said it had never occurred to him. He just thought she was a little cold, but then he said anyone would seem cold after you.”

Anya had no idea what to say so she resorted to platitudes. “How very sad, it must be incredibly difficult for the children.”

“Very.”

“Did Fiona know how ill Geoff was when she ‘buggered off’ as you put it?”

“Oh yes. She knew. It’s probably what made her go. She wasn’t about to look after Geoff on his sickbed. I don’t think he was too upset, except for what it did to the children. You know how cruel kids can be and the fact that their mum went off with another woman made it particularly difficult for them at school.”

“It’s my fault Dave.”

“It’s not your fault. How could it be your fault?”

“Who was the woman?”

“One of her horsey friends. Geoff thought nothing of her spending so much time with her horses and other women with horses.” David was choosing his words very carefully. “It never occurred to him that their friendship went a bit further than normal. Well it wouldn’t would it?”

“Probably not.”

“I have no idea why she couldn’t hang on just a bit longer. They had a comfortable life together, her being married obviously wasn’t ruining her other life and it is painfully obvious to all that Geoff doesn’t have much longer.”

“Perhaps she just got fed up with lying.”

“I think she just was incapable of thinking about anyone but herself.”

Anya knew the same could be said of her so she changed the subject abruptly, her voice harsher. “Would I be right in thinking you didn’t go to all the trouble of finding me just to tell me Geoff is dying?”

“It’s the children.”

“What about the children?”

“They’re not doing very well.”

“How much do they know?”

“Pretty much everything, they’re old enough to understand what’s happening and that their dad isn’t going to come out of hospital.”

“I’m so sorry.” It seemed a completely inadequate thing to say under the circumstances. She wished David would come to the point.

“I went to see him yesterday. He knows he won’t be able to cope with, well, with organising things, for much longer. He asked me to find you.”

“He asked you to find me?” She repeated, unsure of how that made her feel.

“He was worried I wouldn’t be able to find you but I reassured him, we solicitors have our ways and means. He wants you to look after the children.”

So that was it. “What?” Anya had heard him but was playing for time as some of the implications of his words sank in.

“When he’s gone, he wants you to look after his children.” David repeated the words he realised would mean so much.”

“Me?” Anya was trying to take in what David was saying.

“It’s an all-consuming worry for Geoff.”

“What about Fiona? After all is said and done she is their mother.”

“They were divorced before Christmas and she told me she wanted nothing to do with any of them as she they reminded her of what she called ‘her false life’. She fought for custody in the court simply to hurt Geoff knowing that she would lose or, in case it looked like she was winning, she would withdraw at the last moment. It was horribly messy for Geoff and the kids, she just seemed to want to hurt everyone as much as possible.” The tone of David’s voice was so final Anya didn’t press him.

“What about Margaret, or his mother, can’t they look after the children?” As she spoke she realised the horror with which Geoff would view that scenario, he had spent so much of his life fighting his mother and elder sister. “Oh no, forget I said that, that couldn’t possibly work.”

“Can I come round? We can’t talk about this over properly on the phone.”

“Of course. Yes. Do.” Anya was trying to take in what this phone call might do to her life.

“I’ll bring my wife, if I may?”

“Of course, come to dinner, both of you. You obviously know the address. I’ll see you both around seven.”

“The eldest is another Geoffrey, though everybody calls him Gezza, he’s nearly 16. That’s him last year on his birthday.” Linda and David were sitting in Anya’s cosy drawing room, a photograph album on the table along with three wine glasses and a bottle. Linda pointed to a tall, rather self-conscious boy with glasses.

“He’s not much like his father is he?” Anya looked at the photograph “He looks far too athletic.”

“Fiona’s genes I believe.” Anya failed to read in Linda’s tone what she thought of Fiona.

“And that’s the daughter, Rose?” Anya pointed to a girl, also tall but standing in such a way as to give off the impression of sulkiness.

“That’s Rosemary, Rose to everyone though she’s trying to be Ros now. She thinks that’s more grown up, she’s 15 in July and full of it. She’s gone a bit off the rails recently, she does exactly what she likes when she likes.”

“Probably just like me at her age.”

“I wondered whether you’d think that, you’d be far better at understanding her than her mother.”

“Possibly.”

“And this is the youngest.” Linda pointed to another picture. A boy was sitting on his own, fondling the ears of a black labrador. “James, known as Jimmy, he’s just 13. He’s the sensitive one. Gezza is sporty and bossy, Rose is a rebel while James is a lovely boy, quiet and what we might once have called bookish but is now more ‘computerish’. He works hard at school, reads a lot, enjoys working with computers which Geoff, of course, has loved. I think of the three James is coping least well with all this change, he bottles things up and takes everything to heart.”

“You’re fond of him.”

“We’re fond of them all. We have children of similar age, they come round and hang out together.”

“When it suits them.” David added.

“Even Rebellious Ros and Gorgeous Gezza?”

“We don’t see as much of them as we do Jimmy,” Linda’s tone indicated disapproval of the elder siblings. “but then no one is very nice in their teens are they?”

“Surely Kathleen’s clucking around her Geoffrey’s brood.” Anya wasn’t afraid to let Linda know exactly what she felt about her ex-mother in law, though she had every reason to believe she would already know.

“She’s been round at the house every day, she does her best but she’s nearly 80 and has no idea how to cope with teenagers in the 1990s.”

“She had no idea how to deal with teenagers in the ‘60s.”

“They certainly don’t like her very much and they take absolutely no notice of anything she tells them.”

“She never did her very well with her own children, why should she do any better with Geoff’s?”

“But what happens when Geoff’s, well, when he’s gone?” Anya didn’t like euphemisms but she couldn’t bring herself to say the words ‘when Geoff’s dead.’

“That’s what he’s scared about. He’s accepted the fact that he hasn’t got long to go and he’s being very stoical about it. But he gets very agitated when he thinks of the children’s future.”

“Does Kathleen realise she won’t be able to look after the children?”

“She thinks she’s the only person who can but I think one day she will accept that she would be out of her depth.”

“You mean that at the moment she thinks she will?”

“I’m afraid so. That’s why Geoff asked me to call you.”

Anya heard, but didn’t take in fully, what David had said.

“But what about Margaret? Her children must be grown up and flown the nest by now?”

“Ah yes. Matthew and Maggie. Matt’s in his final year at Durham and Maggie’s teaching in Thailand of all places. We’ve never seen much of either of them.”

“So why not Margaret? She must be ideal. The children must know her, she must have the time on her hands.” Anya pictured the prim, rather grim woman that she had watched at the Golf Club New Year Ball.

“Unfortunately she’s her mother all over again. If you thought Kathleen was a control freak you should see Margaret as a mother. Nothing the children do is ever right. Ever. She criticises everyone and everything. She’s not yet 50 yet she could be her mother’s sister.”

“But that’s 50 going on 80.” Linda joined in supporting of her husband’s argument. “There was a family tea before Geoff went into hospital to which we were privileged to be invited, probably on Geoff’s insistence. It was difficult to tell which was the mother and which the daughter, quite frightening really. Geoff’s never liked her and he certainly wouldn’t trust her to bring up his brood in the way he would want. Also, she drinks like a fish. Really, Anya, there are so many reasons why Margaret would be a disaster.”

“So I’m the only one left?”

“Geoff asked me to talk to you. He says you’re the best, the only, person he would trust to help them grow up without him. He told me ‘she’s the only one suitable’. ”

“Me? Suitable?”

“Ironic that isn’t it.”

Linda looked perplexed as Anya and David smiled at each other, aware that Geoff had carefully chosen his words. “He said you are the only person he could trust to bring them up as he would want them to be brought up.”

“How’s that?”

“With free spirits, confident, not afraid to be different, not afraid not to conform.”

“Is that how he thinks of me?” She was touched.

“He always has. We talk about those early days sometimes. He told me how you’d fought against your upbringing to make something of yourself.”

“I was lucky. I married money.” She tried to laugh the compliment off.

“But you’d already made something of yourself before that.”

“I was still considered a trifle unsuitable.”

“Not by everyone.”

“I’ve changed, you know, grown up. All that was many years ago and I’m a very different person now.” She began to argue her case. She wasn’t sure why she felt she had to.

“You didn’t differ very much from everyone’s expectations at the Golf Club.” Linda was suddenly hostile. “I think I could just about understand Tim but why Matthew? Matthew was just a boy.”

Anya bit back the response that he seemed a bit more than a boy at the time. He needed Linda to be on her side. “Tim and I have a long history.”

“Have?” Linda asked pointedly.

“Had.” Anya knew she should have spoken in the past tense. “You know I didn’t want to come south when we graduated, Geoff rather tricked me into it, and I was very lonely. I needed a friend and Tim said he would help me in the seemingly permanent war with our mother-in-law. But he didn’t, he left me to fight Kathleen alone because it was far more important to him to be acceptable to his clubs and associations. I don’t think I’ve ever forgiven him.

“But why Matthew?”

“That was a mistake. I regretted it immediately afterwards. I should not have used him, even though he was actually the one that did the seducing.”

“Are you really the sort of woman who can look after an adolescent boy? Gezza is not much younger than Matthew was.”

Anya bit back the angry responses that immediately came to mind and spoke quietly and simply. “Matthew was a good two years older than Gezza is and probably a quantum leap more confident and experienced. He also had a bet with his friends, I believe Matthew won a great deal of money that night so it was hardly the seduction of an innocent. But honestly, if you don’t think the relationship would be completely different were I to be in a position of responsibility, then I don’t know why you’re here.”

“We’re here because Geoff asked us to talk to you.” Linda sounded defensive. “For some reason he trusts you.”

“I think maybe you’ll have to know me a bit better to understand that I do try to act appropriately according to the circumstances.”

“I think perhaps I will.” Linda still sounded as though she needed persuading.

“Please.” It was suddenly very important to Anya that Linda trusted her. “You can’t believe I’d act in the same way. You can’t believe I’d seduce a boy in my care? Geoff’s son? You can’t believe I’d be that crass!”

“You know Geoff never stopped loving you.”

Anya was surprised by the change in the tone of Linda’s voice. “Really?”

“He said he wished he’d stood up against his mother and stuck by you. He said he should never have let himself be manipulated so much by his mother.”

“He told you that?”

“Almost the exact words.”

“And he really wants me to take on his children?” Anya didn’t know whether to be scared out of her mind or flattered beyond belief. Her main emotion was one of sadness that it had come to this to bring her and Geoff back together.

“Will you come and talk about it with him? Will you consider it?”

“I’m really the only one?”

David sensed success.

“You are.”

“However unsuitable?”

“Your word, nobody else’s.”

Anya looked from David to Linda and down at her hands. She did not know what she should do.

Since her purchase of Fishermen Rock fifteen months earlier Anya had split her time between England and Barbados. She still took pride in the successful running of her property business in England but she gained most satisfaction from the change of fortune of Edna’s Place. Miriam was a skilled and efficient manager. She was used to dealing with the bookings, the hiring and training of staff, the ordering of supplies and had a brilliant manner with customers and Anya had soon understood that she should not interfere in the day to day running of the hotel because no-one could do that better than Miriam. Her own input was the wider picture. She had no lack of ambition or funds, so she had hired the best international hospitality marketing business in New York. As a result Fishermen Rock was becoming established as the fashionable destination of choice for the footballers, racing drivers, rock stars and actors who loved the idea of Barbados but who were put off by the formalities of some of the established resorts. But there was still a long way to go, she had plans for development and diversification, she had in her mind a detailed five year plan for herself and her businesses. For the first time in her life, as she had flown into Heathrow that morning, she had known where her life was heading.

Or so she had thought.

“Go and see him.” David said gently. “No one will force you to take them on if it’s wrong for you because if it’s wrong for you it’ll be wrong for them.”

David and Linda had tried to prepare her for the shock of seeing Geoff. They had explained how ill he was, how he had changed, but no words could have prepared her. Involuntarily she sucked in air and grabbed David’s arm for support. ‘Oh God’ she hoped she hadn’t spoken out loud but she knew she must have done as Linda put her hand on Anya’s other arm and squeezed hard.

Geoff lay, seemingly asleep, in the bed that occupied the centre of the room connected by a mass of wires to the machines around his bed that beeped and displayed numbers and graphs in different colours that made no sense to her. She stared at the almost unrecognisable face, there seemed to be nothing between the translucent flesh and his skull, his eyes sunken in over-sized sockets. His arms, resting on the covers, reminded her of the pictures of victims of concentration camps.

Her hand grasped at Dot’s locket and she remembered that hospital visit, so long ago. She had liked Dot, Dot had been her friend and it had hurt her when she had seen her dying in hospital. But she had loved Geoff, probably had never stopped loving him. The hurt was so much greater. She knew, with a certainty that frightened her, that she should have trusted him enough to put his picture in that locket. Perhaps, after all, it wasn’t too late.

“Hello Geoff old chap. I’ve brought someone to see you.”

A surprisingly familiar voice answered David.

“You’ve found her.”

“Hello Geoff.”

Geoff opened his eyes and they smiled.

“Good to see you Anya.”

She walked over and sat on the chair close to the bed, taking her hand in his. He returned the squeeze.

“Oh Geoff.”

“Sorry I’m like this.”

“Don’t be daft.”

“You’ll have to do the talking.” His words came in a rush and then he stopped, as if that had exhausted him.

“David and Linda say you want me to look after the children when…” Words failed her.

“When I’m dead.” Geoff sounded very matter of fact. “You can say it. Will you?”

“Yes. I will.” She had no idea what it would mean but seeing Geoff like this she knew she would have to try. Somehow she would rearrange her life.

“You know what it’ll mean?”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea but that’s OK. You know I’ve always been a quick learner.”

“Tell me about your life. What you’ve been up to for the past nineteen years.”

“We’ll be outside.” David said quietly and Anya heard the door click shut.

“Tell me.” Geoff repeated and squeezed her hand as he closed his eyes.

“Well, where do I start?” In a quiet and unexcited way Anya began to tell Geoff about her life. “It’s been a long time since we’ve known much about each other hasn’t it?”

She didn’t wait for an answer as Geoff’s eyes were closed but he squeezed her hand briefly so she knew to continue.

“After I left,” she was amazed at how difficult it was to say the words, “I spent a shitty summer but then got a job. In an Estate Agents, would you believe it, me an estate agent? Anyway I eventually married the boss, Peter, but we’re divorced.”

“Was he nice?”

“Not as nice as you. But nice is such an inadequate word. He was kind, attentive at first but then he found someone else. We lived apart in the same house for years. Then we got divorced, that was the reason for the fiasco at the Golf Club Ball. I needed to give him very public grounds.”

“Anyone else?”

“Not really. I live alone now. There’s no one in my life.”

“Sad.” Geoff whispered.

“Not really. I could have got involved if I’d wanted to. I’ve changed you know Geoffers, I’m not the pushy grasping…”

“Sex-mad”

“…pushy, grasping, sex-mad, girl I used to be. I suppose I’ve grown up a bit. That mess a couple of New Years ago was my last stupidity. I really regret that, you know Geoff, I do regret making such a fool of Tim.”

“He deserved it.”

“Thanks, I hoped he would.”

She was rewarded with a squeeze of her hand, though Geoff kept his eyes shut.

“What do you do?”

“I’ve got a bit of a property business, a range of really nice houses and flats that bring in a good income. I haven’t had to worry about money for a while.” She realised she sounded complacent but she meant only to comfort Geoff. “I bought a hotel in Barbados as well. I bought it on a whim, well not really a whim, more a desperate need to have something positive in my life. It’s been doing really well and has been a very good investment. I’m ashamed to say how much profit it makes. I’ve been going over there three or four times a year, but if I can’t go it’ll run itself.” If she was looking after the children that was something that she would have to give up. Perhaps they could go out once a year, for a holiday and she could pack everything into one visit.

“A business woman then.”

“I was.” She was already thinking that those times were past.

“I’ll make arrangements.” He had opened his eyes. “I’ll get Dave to draw up something, make sure the children aren’t…”

“Don’t worry. I’ve done quite well for a scraggy tart from Liverpool.” She tried to speak ironically but realised there was an unwelcome defensiveness in her voice. Geoff opened his eyes, looked at her tellingly, and closed them again.

They were quiet for a few moments and Anya thought maybe he had gone to sleep. His breathing was low and even, the pressure on her hand, slight as it had been, relaxed.

She found she was stroking his hand, gently, with the back of her fingers, keeping in time with his breathing. She spoke slowly, gently to him. Maybe he was asleep, perhaps he couldn’t hear the words, but there was always the chance that he would gain comfort from the sound of a voice.

“Do you remember that first evening in the hall canteen? I’d been so lonely and all I was looking for was someone to latch on to. I was so lucky it was you, Geoff. So lucky. It wasn’t all about sex was it? Even from that first time there was something more between us. Love? I think we were ‘in love’, from the beginning, but it took time to learn to love each other properly. I think I only realised that I loved you, rather than just being in love with you, the summer after I left you. Love is like happiness isn’t it? You only know you’ve had it when it’s gone.”

She paused and looked at his shallow breathing thinking of the many times he had been breathless from the energy of their love-making.

“I have loved you for so long Geoff but the way I loved you has changed through the years. I think I was most in love with you before we came south. That’s when it started to go wrong wasn’t it? We had to work at it, dig deeper, forgive more. Perhaps that’s where we went wrong. Neither of us could forgive the other for things we never even tried to talk about. Sometimes I loved you so much I couldn’t imagine a life without you, at other times I loved you more when you weren’t with me. Does that make any sort of sense? But whether I loved you or not, Geoff, I always liked you, always, and I hope I never blamed you. Your mother and sister were so determined to get their way. It wasn’t your fault they wore you down.”

There was no change in Geoff’s breathing and she kept stroking his hand. There was no indication he was anything other than asleep. The only sound in the room, when she wasn’t speaking, was the regular beep of the monitor. She couldn’t bring herself to look at the line, imagining at any time it would stop its ups and downs and there would only be a flat line accompanied by a high pitched wail as the beeps stopped. Geoff turned his head slightly, but his eyes were still shut, his breathing still even, he seemed still to be asleep.

“I’m so sorry about Fiona. I shouldn’t have egged you on to have your wicked way with her should I? But then how were either of us to know what she really wanted. I suppose she went along with her parents and your mother to give herself cover so she didn’t have to explain what she was. They would never have understood. Perhaps she felt she had to get away from her parents so she could be free to be who she wanted to be. What I can’t understand is her leaving you all now.” Anya paused, she realised her talking about Fiona might upset Geoff, but he gave no sign of hearing her. “Your mother didn’t care about your happiness at all. She just saw Fiona as good breeding stock to provide her with the grandchildren who would perpetuate her Geoffrey. I don’t think she has ever really forgiven him for so obviously disliking her so much. And she didn’t really care about Margaret either did she? How did Margaret cope with knowing her children weren’t good enough because they had the wrong surname? We should have worked together more, you know Geoffers, we should have talked to each other more. We could have beaten her, we could have beaten them both.”

Perhaps, Anya thought somewhat surreally, if she had had a flash forward all those years ago and could have seen herself now, sitting by Geoff’s bedside, holding his hand in his last few days of life, she would have imagined they were still married, that none of the past 20 years had happened.

“But then, as you said, if we had stayed together you would never have had your kids and David and Linda say they are really nice. It was so obvious that you love them to bits and when you wake up you must tell me everything about them. I used to read the Courier to see if there was anything about you so I saw all the announcements. Isn’t that silly? I was so pleased for you but so very, very jealous.”

There was no response from Geoff, his breathing remained slow and even so she kept talking in her soft, expressive voice. “You know Geoff, when I realised I couldn’t have children I thought it was the most liberating thing in the world. I was like any man and could have sex as much as I liked and I would never have to worry about Durex or coils or pills or anything. I felt so lucky. What did I know? It cost me you, well there were probably other factors involved there, but it was really the children thing wasn’t it? Then it cost me Peter. I suppose that marriage was over well before he realised children were important to him. I was so jealous of Tim for having Maggie and Matthew, and so jealous of you with your brood. I kept getting the local paper, kept looking out for anything that related to you all. All those years I don’t think I ever really let you go. It wasn’t that I was worried about having no one to look after me in my fast approaching old age it was that I was worried that my years on this planet weren’t marked in any way. OK, maybe a few properties would have my name on the deeds if anyone bothered to read them. OK, maybe some children existed because of what I’ve done to their parent’s lives. But they weren’t me, they weren’t part of me. No part of me is going to remain on this planet after I’m gone and that has bothered me so very much. I do wish, more than anything in the whole wide world that I could have had your children. Life, for both of us, would have been so different. I’m so, so sorry.”

She realised that her voice had risen and she looked up from Geoff’s hand to his face to see if he was awake but he had not moved. She watched the drip drip drip of the liquid as it flowed from the bottle into the tube and through the needle into his arm. She stroked Geoff’s hand rhythmically as she thought about how different their lives could have been.

In a resolute but calm and low voice, she said things that should have been said years before.

“I never told you why I couldn’t have children did I? I wonder why you never asked, I suppose it was one of those things that we just took for granted. I should have told you though, maybe it would have made a difference. I was sterilised when I was 7 years old because my mother had been raped by either her father or her brother, I don’t know which. I’ve always felt like it was my fault, perhaps that’s what made me so ashamed and so angry with the world. I should have told you years ago, it might have made everything different if you’d known.”

She felt she had said too much, so she stopped talking and almost dozed off in the warmth of the room with the machine’s hypnotic beeping.

It could have been seconds or minutes or an hour, she had no sense of time, when she felt his hand squeeze hers. She opened her eyes to see him looking intently at her. Then his eyes slowly closed and opened again, like a two eyed blink in slow motion. He closed his eyes again and Anya sat stroking his hand as the setting sun brightened the sky and then its absence darkened it.

“Anya?” It was a young man’s voice, remarkably similar to that of the young Geoff.

She turned to see three children, standing by the door, Geoff’s children. She wondered how long they had been there.

“Hi. He’s asleep.”

She wondered briefly how a room so full of people could still be so quiet.

“Hi Dad.”

“Hi Kids.”

“Have you been asleep Dad?” Rose asked, staring at Anya with a mixture of curiosity and hostility.

He looked deliberately at Anya “Not for one moment.” and then, turning to his children, smiled.

“You’re Anya.” The older of the two boys held his hand out. Anya took it and was relieved to feel the firm handshake. It wasn’t friendly, perhaps there was an element of suspicion in the way he looked at her as he shook her hand, but it was contact. “Uncle David said you’d be here. I’m Geoffrey the Third, known to all as Gezza.”

“Hello Gezza. Yes, I’m Anya.”

Geoff was still looking at Anya smiling almost imperceptibly.

“And you must be James.” She turned to the younger boy who copied his elder brother and shook her hand firmly.

“Dad wants you to look after us.” Rose’s tone was not friendly, she was simply stating a fact.

“That’s why I’m here. I’ve only known your Dad is … ill … since yesterday. It’s a lot to take in.” “You will though won’t you?” James’s voice was almost pleading. “Aunty Margaret’s staying with us and it’s absolutely awful.”

Anya felt the weight of their stares, Gezza curious, Rose antagonistic and James desperate.

“We’re just an excuse for her to control another chunk of the world.” Rose spoke with obvious resentment. “Or try to.”

“And she drinks. There’s no gin left.” James added.

“James.” Geoff’s admonition was so quiet they almost didn’t hear it.

“It’s true Dad.” Gezza stood up for his young brother. “She drinks far more than Mum ever did and she’s horrid. She’s always saying how much better behaved her ‘Matthew and Young Margaret’ were when they were our age…”

“…and how we’re all letting you down by not behaving as well as they did, and we’re not.” Rose looked as if she was about to cry, her bravado gone.

Anya caught the look in Geoff’s eyes. She tried to understand something of the pain he must be feeling as he faced leaving his children to grow up without him.

“You really don’t want your Aunt Margaret to look after you?” She spoke calmly as if to adults. Any decision had to be made swiftly. Rosie was older than she had been when she had started to go off the rails. ‘By her age,’ Anya thought, ‘I’d been having sex for nearly two years. What are the chances Rose is doing it? And what are her chances of getting pregnant if she has no reason not to and no guidance on how not to?’ Gezza, nearly 16, was trying to be the strong one, old for his years, being forced to grow up too quickly. ‘He’s probably had to be’ Anya reasoned ‘feeling responsible for his siblings against a resentful, alcoholic, lesbian mother and a weakened, increasingly ill father’. James seemed the quiet one ‘but quiet can so often mean vulnerable, sensitive and confused’ he would need help to be brought out into the world. These children did not need Margaret to bring them up, and most certainly not Kathleen.

They needed her.

“We could look after ourselves.” Gezza’s tried to sound convincing, perhaps he realised this was a last stand against the devastating changes that were about to be made in their lives. Perhaps he had hoped that they could stay as they always had, just with no parents in the house.

“Gezza that’s very noble of you, noble and brave, but you’re suggesting taking responsibility for James and Rose without knowing what that might involve.” Anya did not know either but she thought perhaps she had a little more of an idea than Gezza.

“I don’t need looking after. I’m 16. I can look after myself.”

“You will, but not yet.” Geoff spoke quietly.

“So can I, I’m nearly 15.” Rose added her unnaturally high pitched voice to the discussion. Anya wondered if she was finally realising what her father’s dying was going to mean to their lives.

“Do you understand the sacrifices you would have to make Gezza?” Anya held Gezza’s defiant eye, a defiance that Anya knew would only be a front to hold back fear. “You couldn’t go to University, you couldn’t do so many of the things you do now, the weekend sport, the hanging out with your friends.” She was guessing, but she had lived in the town long enough to know what a boy of his age would be doing. “Those are the things you should be doing at 16. Not checking that the bills have been paid and that your brother and sister have done their homework or have clean underwear.”

They were the first parental responsibilities that came to her mind. She knew it was an inadequate list but it had the desired effect. Gezza turned away.

“Anya’s right.”

They all looked down at Geoff.

“But it’s not up to us, it’s up to the court.”

Anya looked at Gezza’s back, turned against her as he pretended to look out of the window, Rose was near to tears, she turned to James.

“James? Can you explain? Your dad’s pretty tired.”

Gezza turned around, he wasn’t going to give up being the spokesman for his family. “When Mum left us she said she wanted a life for herself, we were holding her back from being the person she had always wanted to be.” As he spoke Anya realised he was repeating, word for word, what their mother had said to them. She felt a wave of anger against the woman and made herself concentrate on what Gezza was saying. “At first the court said she had to have custody because Dad wasn’t well enough. But she didn’t want us, she was only fighting Dad to hurt him, and Uncle David managed to persuade the court that it would be wrong to give custody to someone who didn’t want us. The magistrate didn’t want to do it but she gave temporary custody to Dad. She said we had to come back when…”

“…when I’m dead.” Geoff finished the sentence his son couldn’t.

“Sorry, you’re going to have to be a bit clearer.” Anya was confused. “Does this mean you only need me until,” she looked straight at Geoff knowing she had to be as strong as he was being, “until your Dad is dead? Then it’s back to court?”

“But if we’re got a stable home environment they’d look at it from the starting point of keeping us together.” It seemed to Anya that James was also repeating a phrase he had heard others use.

“It’s not going to be easy.”

Anya tried to grasp the scale of what Geoff was asking her to do; learn to be a parent, provide that ‘stable home environment’, help his children face up to their father’s death, then convince the court to keep the family together whilst no doubt having to fight Margaret and Kathleen every step of the way.

And that would only be the beginning.

“Will you take them on Anya?” Geoff lifted his hand and reached out towards her. “I wasn’t asleep.” He was speaking very slowly and she could hardly make out what he was saying. “I heard every word. I’m sorry.”

As she looked at him she realised there was something wrong, his eyes closed slowly, reluctantly and she realised there was no resistance in his hand, it was limp in hers.

“Rose,” Anya said calmly “please go and get a nurse. I think your father needs some help.

They waited outside the room in silence as nurses walked in and out of the room pushing trolleys of equipment and men in white coats talked seriously, but inaudibly as they walked down the corridor without a word to the four anxious faces waiting for news.

“Is he OK?” James asked a nurse after half an hour. He was given a slight smile in reply that was probably supposed to be encouraging.

“He’ll be OK won’t he?” James asked Anya as if, as an adult, she would know the answer better than he.

“I think he was just a little faint. He must be very tired. It’s been a very difficult day for him, sorting out the future of the three people he loves most in the world. And he does love you three, more than you could ever imagine.” She put her arm around Rose, James sat next to her and slipped his arm through hers. “You should have heard him talking about you, he’s so proud of you all.” For a moment she was back in the golf club bar, champagne in hand, listening to Geoff talk about his children. If only she had known then what was to come. Things would have been different, she would have made them different.

The quiet corridor was disturbed by a shrill sound.

“What are you doing here?” Anya opened her eyes to see Margaret staring at her with undisguised hatred. She hadn’t acknowledged the presence of the children and she ignored them. “You!” She was almost screaming with anger, “I’m talking to you! What the hell are you doing here?”

Anya had no time to reply before another, also once familiar, voice joined in.

“Take your hands off those poor children.” Kathleen tried to push Anya’s arm off Rose’s shoulder and pull James away from her. The strength and the violence of her actions surprised them all.

Anya knew that a bearing of dignity and restraint was the best answer to such open hostility. She did not answer, she simply tightened her hold on Rose and James and smiled at them in what she hoped was an encouraging way.

“I asked you a question. What are you doing here? Answer me!”

“She’s here to see Dad.” Gezza was the first to speak.

“I wasn’t speaking to you young man. I was talking to that woman.”

“Anya. Her name is Anya.” James spoke very politely but they all heard the defiance in his voice.

“I know her name. I know exactly who she is. I want her to tell me what she’s doing here.”

“She has no right to be here, no right at all.” Kathleen added her voice in support of her daughter.

“I told you.” Gezza spoke with what Anya thought was admirable insolence. “She’s here to see Dad. What’s the problem with that? She was married to him.”

“Was. Was. She was married to him. She hasn’t been part of this family for a very long time. Thank God!” Anya remembered what James had said about Margaret’s drinking and she thought perhaps she was drunk.

“Well Dad wants her to be part of the family now.” Rose spoke up finding a voice as firm as her brother’s.

“What could you possibly mean by that?” Kathleen was at her imperious best.

“She’s going to marry Dad again.” Gezza had made the decision.

Rose glanced at her brother, smiled and took up the theme, “Then she’ll be our proper step-mother and she’ll look after us, then you and the court can’t do anything about it.”

Anya hoped no one caught the look of sheer panic that she felt must show on her face. She was aware of, without actually hearing, the gasp of ‘No!’ from her ex- and soon-to-be-again sister-in-law.

“Well there’s no reason why not and a lot of reasons why.” As James spoke Anya heard a calm reason not shown by his siblings. Anya realised she was seeing their personalities in microcosm: Gezza the impetuous but protective one with the burden on his shoulders of being the eldest; Rose the emotional yet pragmatic one and James the thoughtful, logical peacemaker.

“Will you do it Anya?” Gezza asked her rather formally “Will you marry our Dad?”

“Don’t you think we’d better ask him first?”

Ignoring them Kathleen walked towards Geoff’s room. “We’ll see about that.” She opened the door just as the nurse was wheeling the trolley out smiling, oblivious to the drama that had been played out in the corridor. “He’s better now, it was just a faint. You can go back in but don’t get him too excited.”

Anya noticed the subtlety of the re-arrangement as they filed into the room. Before they had all left she had been on one side of his bed with the children ranged against her amongst the drips and accoutrements of medical surveillance on the other. Now she sat in the chair she had left just a few minutes before with Gezza standing to her right and Rose and James to her left facing Kathleen and Margaret across the bed.

Anya took Geoff’s hand, shocked again at the slightness of him.

“Geoff. For God’s sake don’t try to laugh but your children have just asked me to marry you.”

“Good idea.” He smiled, it was almost the smile of the Geoff of old.

“You think so?”

“I do.” Still smiling, he closed his eyes.

Ten days later, the 8th April 1995, Anya was to become Mrs Geoff Philips for the second time.

Friday 7th April 1995

My last night as Anya Cave. Tomorrow it’s Mrs Geoff Philips. Again. But for how long? The hospital won’t let me stay more than a couple of hours at a time as he gets so tired. I know he likes me there, stroking his hand. I’ve told him about all the things he never asked before. I read pages from my diaries. ‘I want to know you before it’s too late’ he said. How am I going to get through all this? What could we have been if we’d stayed together?

They’re using more and more drugs, that means it won’t be long. I must stop being self-pitying, I have no right to be when he isn’t in the least.

When we left the hospital last Wednesday I drove the children home. They had to tell me the way as I had no idea where Geoff lived. I was horrified to see it was Kathleen’s old house. The kids explained that Geoff moved into the house (after all it was his) when he married Fiona and the children have lived nowhere else. I won’t move them what with all the other things happening in their lives but changes will occur. It’ll help keep the children occupied. But living here will take some getting used to.

We hired a man and a van and moved and I moved in on April 1st. An agency is taking over the day to day running of the properties with Gemma keeping me informed as and when. Phoning Miriam to explain the change in circumstances wasn’t easy. I said I’d get out as often as I could but it could not be as often as in the past. She said she understood but I’m not so sure she did, she sounded surprisingly down, almost angry, that I wasn’t going to be out next month.

The children’s schools don’t break up until 12th but I’ve persuaded headmaster and headmistress to let them miss the last week so they can spend as much time as possible with their father. I was really nervous about visiting them but remembered just in time how nice Dot had been. Funny how life’s experiences occasionally can come in useful.

Tomorrow I’ll not only be wife but step-mother. How on earth will I cope? What on earth am I letting myself in for?

This might, just might, be the best thing I’ve ever done in my entire life.

The Registrar had been prepared for a solemn death-bed ceremony but quickly adapted to the atmosphere of laughter and hope that filled Geoff’s room along with the flowers.

“Wow!” Geoff had said as Anya had walked into the room on Gezza’s arm to the sound of The Beatles All you Need is Love. James had researched the music that would have been around when they had first got married and he had found he rather liked The Beatles, stoically ignoring his siblings’ teasing for ignoring the superior claims of Blur, Oasis or Take That. Anya had thought carefully about what to wear and had discussed it in detail with Rose. She told her how their first wedding had been informal, how she had worn a denim skirt and cream t-shirt and wondered whether to do the same this time. Rose had been horrified. ‘You must be really really glamorous.’ So she had decided on the dress she had worn to the Golf Club Ball, she knew Geoff would get the joke. David and Linda acted as witnesses because neither Kathleen nor Margaret had replied to the invitations so carefully hand-written by Rose and James.

“Is that it?” Gezza asked when the registrar pronounced his father and Anya man and wife. “There’s not a lot to it is there?”

“No need to make a fuss.”

“We didn’t the first time did we?”

Geoff and Anya found themselves telling the children about their first wedding and their life in Liverpool. Anya did most of the talking with Geoff prompting her, picking out the good times, ignoring the difficulties. The children had the sense not to ask what had gone wrong.

“Now it’s time for you children to go.” Anya handed an envelope to Gezza. Go downstairs and there should be a car waiting for you. When you’re in the car open the envelope, it’s our wedding present to you, your Dad’s and mine.”

“Not to mention that you want to be left alone.” Gezza tried to laugh off his embarrassment.

“Enjoy yourselves. I’ll see you at home by 9 tonight. No later. You have to do as I say now!”

As they shut the door behind them Geoff and Anya could hear their children’s giggles.

“Where are they off to?”

“A stretch limo is taking them to the Hard Rock Café in Piccadilly.”

“They’ll be OK? Saturday afternoon?”

“Of course. The guy who runs it stays at my place in Barbados, he’s going to look after them. A group I’ve never heard of but who are, apparently, something hot in the charts, will be sitting at the table next to them and will, casually, engage them in conversation. They’ll be absolutely fine.”

“That’s some present.”

“Your present too. Now, husband of mine, budge over.”

Anya slowly took off her dress and slipped under the sheet next to her husband.

“The nurses?” Geoff did not want to be caught in bed with his wife.

“There’s a ‘Do not Disturb’ sign on the door. At least I asked James to put it on the door as he seems to be pretty reliable.”

“But Anya. I can’t…”

“Of course you can’t. But I can.”

On the day after the wedding the children spent the time giving Anya and Geoff a thorough account of their afternoon in London. Anya made a mental note to offer the band a free stay at Fishermen Rock as Rose told them in awestruck tones how they had started talking to these lads on the table next to them and how they had joined them and, at the end of the meal taken them to the recording studio where they had seen the band work on their new album. Even Gezza had been impressed. Anya noticed tears in Geoff’s eyes as all three children took turns to interrupt each other to add detail upon detail of their treat.

Every night Anya turned on her computer and wrote something in her diary. They were precious days, they were important, she would need to be able to relive them all her life. The end was going to come very quickly.

Monday 10th April 1995

Geoff’s 45th. Invited Kathleen and Margaret to join us for a small party. I made the point, rather forcefully, that we would be celebrating on the correct day. Just this once G was having his proper birthday. It was all too much for G so after all that fuss we left after only a few minutes.

Some days were better than others. Some days Geoff wanted to talk and Anya would sit, holding his hand, listening as Geoff told her things about the children and their lives. She wanted to know everything he could tell her.

Friday 14th April

Good Friday. Very quiet in the hospital. Spend day with G. Kids with K. G having good day and he told me about his life with Fiona. He said I needed to know to understand some of the things the kids wouldn’t want to do. If ever I meet the woman I won’t be responsible for my actions. Before she left she told the children that their father had raped her when she was a virgin. How could she! What mother would say that to her children even if it were true! Times were so different then, and she’d led him on for years. G called her a prick teaser more times than I can remember. And then when it finally happened she made G feel so guilty. And then to tell that stupid story to the children! Words for once absolutely and utterly fail me.

Some days she would lie down on the bed next to him and hold him in her arms, carefully avoiding drips and tubes. It would have been funny, he said one day, if it weren’t so sad.

Tuesday 18th

Doctor wanted to have a word. She was very nice. We’ve chatted briefly before, in the corridor or in G’s room, but this time she wanted to see me in her office. She said he was getting weaker. Could we cut down on the visits so he could conserve his strength? I argued that surely time without his children would be just lying there waiting to die, not living. We agreed a compromise, me and one child at a time. More and more drugs are being forced into what’s left of his body and each day he talks less and our visits are shorter.

The time spent at home seemed filled with the practicalities of living, cooking, eating, washing, ironing, cleaning. The children sometimes wanted to talk, sometimes they didn’t. Anya felt the best thing was to let them do pretty much what they pleased as long as they were always home in time for dinner each evening when they all sat down together, as a family.

Sunday 23rd April

It won’t be long now. I put the ‘Do Not Disturb’ notice on his door and lay on the bed with him. He knew I was there but said nothing. I tried to keep my breathing in time with his, as we had done when we first slept together. He lifted his hand and touched me on my breast. What he was trying to say?

The next day he was not aware she was in the room. She talked to the doctor and a few hours later she and the children, along with Kathleen and Margaret sat together silently waiting for the end.

Tuesday 25th April

He’s gone. We sat all night, me holding one hand and Kathleen the other, the kids huddled together by the window. I couldn’t help thinking, as we waited for my twice husband’s breathing to stop, that the tableau was a metaphor for his life. Poor love, torn between two strong women. Why had he chosen the wrong one? But then, maybe, in the end, he hadn’t. I was right all those years ago, I searched for the words in the diary, ‘wherever I went, whatever I did, I ended up with Geoff’.

We came home all together, even M & K, and sat in the lounge not knowing what to say or think or do. I wondered briefly what I would feel if one of these children, already the centre of my life, died before I did. How would I cope? It was Gezza who pulled us all together. ‘Dad wouldn’t want this.’ He said. ‘Let’s put some music on and eat.’ I made a supper that we all picked at while listening to the music tape James had compiled for the wedding. Such a two edged sword: the grief of loss and the guilt of thinking ‘thank God it’s over now we can get on with our lives’. An unsuitable thought? Surprisingly Kathleen handed over the Philips emerald ring. How she’d wangled it off Fiona I have no idea. Perhaps she did it with an imperious message on an answer phone.

The first week of her widowhood was the most difficult time Anya hoped she would ever have to live through. Gezza spent a great deal of time in the garden, Rose in her bedroom and James in the study on his computer. None of them seemed to worry about going out or the beginning of the summer term. She let the schools know they would be late back from holiday, they were very understanding.

She shopped, cooked, cleaned, washed and ironed. She was in touch with Kathleen and Margaret regarding the funeral arrangements, letting them make most of the running though they were appalled that, as Geoff’s widow, it was she who had to sign all the paperwork and to whom the Funeral Directors turned for confirmation of instructions. ‘Had Geoff known this would happen?’ she had asked herself ‘Probably’ and she had smiled. She was not unreasonable in her dealings with Kathleen and Margaret, letting them discuss the date and time and details of the service with the vicar. She wanted nothing to do with that side of things. It wasn’t Geoff lying in the hospital morgue, it wouldn’t be Geoff disintegrating in that coffin underneath the soil a few feet above the coffin of the father he had never known.

Monday 1st May

Geoff why did you get me into this? I’ve got no experience, nothing to go on, I can’t even think back to my childhood. The children are bereft without their Dad and are just going with the flow, doing what’s asked of them, without any arguments. No doubt those are to come. The montage of photos for the wake was a good idea. Every evening we sit on the floor surrounded by photographs. It usually ends in tears. I can’t think that’s a bad thing. But sometimes there are laughs. There was one square photo from an Instamatic camera of you in a pink flowery kipper tie, purple shirt and brown flared trousers. I’m learning so much about them. I’m not pushing them about things like sharing out household chores. That’ll wait till they’re back at school, then I’ll have to start getting them into some sort of routine. At the moment I’m just making sure there’s food on the table at mealtimes (and they’re there to eat it) with clean clothes on their backs.

I suppose it’s a start.

Anya sat looking at, but not seeing, the words on screen.

Nothing in her life would ever be the same again.