When Rachel had arranged to visit Bea at home, she had imagined a pleasant little trip with Hope. They would be laden with gifts, a mixture of the essentials Mrs Wilson probably thought she could do without and a few treats too. They would sit down to enjoy a cream tea and Hope would be able to compare notes with Bea on their colourful perceptions.
‘We’re supposed to be going over to cheer Mrs Wilson up,’ Rachel said, stopping for her daughter to catch up. It wasn’t the first time she had been forced to wait for the little girl scraping her heels along the pavement but, if Hope had any sense, it would be the last. ‘Stop scowling, Hope.’
Hope retaliated with a smile so broad that it made her red and puffy eyes bulge. ‘Is that better?’
Anger constricted Rachel’s chest and if she hadn’t been standing in the middle of a busy high street she might have released the scream building inside her. She was still reeling from the night before when the two people she loved and trusted most in the world had turned against her.
She had spoken to Martin and told him that her mum couldn’t look after Hope for the weekend. She didn’t say why and neither did she put forward her mum’s suggestion of them hiring a car. Taking Hope with them would only increase the immense pressure they were all under so Rachel was going to ask one of her friends to babysit instead, someone who wasn’t so keen to stamp all over her dreams. Her mum’s blatant attempt to sabotage her relationship with Martin wasn’t going to work.
Rachel could almost understand why her mum had done it; Karen didn’t want to lose her daughter and eventually her granddaughter, but that was exactly what was going to happen unless she came to her senses and realised how selfish she was being. Meanwhile Rachel would need to have the courage of her convictions – and one conviction held true above all others. She was lucky to have Martin in her life and she wasn’t going to let this chance of happiness pass her by. She accepted that he wasn’t perfect; maybe he didn’t have the kind of social skills that would make everyone love him as much as she did, but it was her feelings that mattered, not theirs. She wasn’t going to give into Hope’s emotional blackmail; she wasn’t going to beg her mum for support; and she certainly wasn’t going to give up without a fight.
‘I’ll be glad when you’re back at school next week,’ she muttered under her breath, as she imagined how liberating it would be to go to Liverpool without any parental responsibilities. Up until now, her conscience hadn’t allowed her to think such thoughts but as she set off through the park, she didn’t once look back or wait for Hope. Her daughter would have to learn to keep up or risk her mum disappearing into the distance.
Mrs Wilson lived on the leafier side of town and her house was palatial compared to the tiny terrace Rachel had been brought up in. The front garden had a neat lawn with equally well-tended shrubs around its border.
‘You haven’t been out mowing the grass, have you?’ Rachel challenged when Bea opened the door.
‘I can manage to dead-head the roses but I know my limitations. I have a lovely gardener who comes over once a week to help with the heavy work. Now stop worrying about me and get inside.’
It was only when they had settled on the leather Chesterfields in the living room that the old lady had a chance to greet her guests properly. ‘As I recall, young lady, your favourite colour is number …’
‘Eight.’ Hope answered with the first genuine smile Rachel had seen that morning.
‘Ah, that’s right. Mine is number three although I quite like Tuesday.’
Hope’s bloodshot eyes began to sparkle as Mrs Wilson teased out more information about the way her mind coloured not only numbers but certain letters, symbols and words too. The more Rachel heard about synaesthesia, the more envious she became of this strange condition that seemed more of a gift than an affliction. She wished Martin was there to hear them talk; it might make him fear Hope that little bit less.
It was only when Mrs Wilson mentioned how she had loved telling her pupils all about synaesthesia that Rachel found a reason to rejoin the conversation. ‘I bumped into Hope’s teacher the other day. She would love to meet you and suggested you might want to give a talk to Hope’s class.’
‘You could tell all my friends how I see things. They don’t believe me,’ Hope added.
Mrs Wilson’s eyes narrowed. ‘We’ll see,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t like to make promises I can’t keep. Now, where are my manners, I haven’t offered you any refreshments yet, have I? I was thinking we could sit out in the garden and make the most of the nice weather.’
‘That sounds like a lovely idea,’ Rachel said, ‘but please, let me help. I’ve brought a few goodies with me.’
Bea glanced at the bulging shopping bag at Rachel’s feet. ‘Would I be wasting my breath by saying you didn’t have to?’
‘Yes, you would,’ Rachel said, following Bea into the kitchen. Needing no encouragement, Hope disappeared outside to explore the cottage garden at the back of the house. It was big enough to swallow up the little girl without trace.
‘You’re looking well,’ Rachel said. ‘I hardly noticed your limp at all.’
‘All I needed was to get back home where I belong,’ Bea said as she handed Rachel a plate for the colourful cupcakes she had brought with her.
‘Is this the house you shared with your family?’ Rachel asked, sensing that it was. Despite the emptiness that echoed off its walls, it felt like a family home, albeit one that had been put into hibernation for the last fifty years.
Mrs Wilson reply was more of a sigh. ‘Yes,’ she said, then caught Rachel glancing up to the ceiling. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not another Miss Havisham. You won’t find Tim’s bedroom frozen in time with cobwebs hanging from the furniture but I will admit there was a time when we kept things as he’d left them. I put away the last set of clothes I would ever wash and iron for him, made his bed and occasionally wiped away the layers of dust that would otherwise go undisturbed. But only for a while.’
‘Sorry.’
Mrs Wilson shrugged. ‘I can still recall how it looked and how it smelled but with each passing year it takes a little more effort.’ As if to press home the point, she stopped what she was doing and focused her eyes deeper into the past. There followed another shrug, another sigh. ‘When Richard and I split up, I had to take in lodgers to help cover the bills. I had no choice but to give up a little of the past. It hurt. There have been times that I regretted filling his room with someone else’s memories but I suppose it was for the best.’
‘I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you.’
‘Pray you never have to find out, Rachel.’
Like a worm, that nightmarish thought invaded Rachel’s mind as she and Bea made their way out to a small bistro table tucked away beneath the shade of a weeping willow. Hope had been playing at the far end of the garden and came running up to take a long drink of the orange cordial Mrs Wilson had made. Rachel watched her, soaking up every inch of her physical presence and wondering how she could have lost sight of the most important thing in her life: her daughter.
‘There are loads and loads of berries by that fence over there,’ Hope said. ‘Would you like me to pick them for you, Bea?’
‘They’re blackberries and they taste delicious in a pie but if you’re going to pick them you need to be very careful and watch out for the thorns,’ Bea told her. She got up and took Hope to the potting shed to find a small basket and some gloves to dwarf Hope’s little hands.
Rachel watched from a distance that stretched beyond the laws of physics. She hadn’t realised how far removed she had become, not only from her daughter, but from the person, or more precisely, the mother, she had once been.
‘Penny for your thoughts?’ Bea asked when she joined her at the table again.
Rachel blinked hard as if the sun had stung her eyes and not her tears. ‘Hope found out last night about the move to Liverpool.’
‘She doesn’t want to go,’ Bea surmised.
‘And now my mum thinks I’m making a mistake. Between them, they’re making me choose,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I can understand why Hope is frightened of change but I thought my mum was ready to put aside her own feelings and support me.’
‘She doesn’t approve of Martin?’
Rachel put her head in her hands, suddenly feeling swamped by her emotions. ‘She thinks he’s too immature to take on a family, that he’s behaving like a kid in a sweet shop, but it’s only to be expected after having put his life on hold for so long. I wish she could have seen the old Martin. He’s a decent enough bloke, Bea. He’s certainly good enough for me.’
‘Good enough doesn’t sound like a good basis for any relationship. And what of Hope? Is he good enough to be a father to her while he’s rediscovering his second childhood?’ Mrs Wilson asked, all too quickly exposing the fault lines Rachel had been hiding from herself as much as anyone else.
Rachel could see her daughter’s head bobbing up and down as she collected her bounty. ‘I just need to work on him a little longer,’ she admitted. ‘It’s now looking likely that Hope will stay here while Martin and I establish our new life in Liverpool. That’s certainly what Martin wants and mum has said she’ll look after her although I wouldn’t be surprised if she turns the tables on me and changes her mind again.’
Mrs Wilson didn’t reply immediately but stared at Rachel in disbelief. ‘You want to leave Hope behind?’ she asked at last.
‘I’m being torn in two, Bea,’ Rachel said by way of an answer. ‘Hope and mum are pulling me back to my old, mundane, life as a single mum, while Martin is offering this amazing chance to start over again with a husband and a career.’
‘But without Hope.’
Rachel followed Bea’s gaze back towards the little girl she was preparing to abandon. ‘In more ways than one,’ she said, and tried to laugh at the pun but it came out as a sob. In a heartbeat, her blood pressure soared and her chest felt tight. ‘He doesn’t want her, Bea. I’ve been trying to tell myself that all he needs is time to adjust and to get to know her but I’m fooling myself, aren’t I? Of course he hasn’t factored Hope into his plans, it’s been obvious. He bought that damn two-seater sports car and wants a swanky apartment but I’m more of a people carrier and a house in the suburbs kind of girl. He’s expecting luxury Caribbean holidays while I’d be happy with a caravan in Wales, as long as we could be a family. How can two people who love each other have such different views of their perfect life together? It’s not like I’m expecting to live happily ever after, but just one slice of happiness would be nice for a change.’
When Bea replied, it was as if she hadn’t heard a thing that Rachel had said. ‘Despite everything that happened, I’ve had some good times in the last fifty years. The day I was made headmistress; the surprise party for my sixtieth birthday; or when I retired and the whole school made such a fuss …’ She hadn’t taken her eyes off Hope but suddenly turned on Rachel. ‘And I would give up every single one of those spectacular, noteworthy days for just one more day with my son. Not a special one, not Christmas day or holidays, nothing extraordinary, just one, average, every day kind of day,’ she said, her voice crackling with the kind of pain that couldn’t be blunted with time. ‘The sort of days that you have with Hope, taking her to the dentist or dragging her around the supermarket – all that time you have together but value so little it would seem.’
Rachel tried to meet Bea’s steely glare but her tears blurred her vision. She tipped her head back and looked up to the heavens. Through the tendrils of the weeping willow the sky was splintered like the shards of her broken dreams. ‘I can’t do this,’ she whispered. She had felt her anger building all morning – anger at her family for not supporting her, anger at Martin for forcing her to fight for what she wanted – but the rage that consumed her now was directed only at herself. She dropped her head so she could face Bea again. ‘I’m not the kind of person who abandons their child,’ she said, with a sense of purpose that both scared and comforted her.
‘Good, I didn’t think you were.’
‘I can’t believe I was on the verge of leaving her,’ Rachel said, stammering over gulps for air – air that tasted sweeter now that a decision had been made. ‘I can’t believe I ever contemplated it.’ Rachel’s eyes searched out Hope again. She could see the sun shining off her daughter’s head like a halo and knew immediately how it would feel to run her fingers through her hair,how it smelt of damp, sweet sweat each morning. She looked back at Mrs Wilson and imagined the bed left empty after her son scrambled out of his covers one Sunday morning, never to return. To be there and then to be gone in an instant. The pain that Rachel could only imagine hit her like a fist in the stomach, making her gasp out loud. ‘How could I be so selfish? I was thinking only of me … How did I ever think I could live with myself if I gave up my daughter? I can’t live without her,’ she said between sobs that couldn’t be held back as she made a pitiful attempt to explain what was going on inside her head. ‘I would rather die – I’m so ashamed, Bea …’
Rachel took a breath only to have it forced from her lungs by the tiny figure who had rushed up and clamped her arms fiercely around her Mummy.
‘Don’t cry, Mummy! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to make you sad.’ Hope was sobbing too.
‘Oh, sweetheart, you could never make me unhappy,’ Rachel said as she tried to bring the collective sobbing under control. She wiped her eyes so she could see clearly enough to wipe away her daughter’s tears. ‘I love you so much, Hope. I’d be lost without you.’
‘But you love Martin too and you might die of a broken heart if he goes away!’
Rachel cupped Hope’s face in her hands and said, ‘I promise I’m not going to die of a broken heart.’ Despite the conviction she had tried to convey, Rachel’s voice trembled. She had made her choice but she couldn’t help grieving for what she was about to lose.
Mrs Wilson cleared her throat, both to get their attention and to swallow back her own tears. ‘If you’re right and Martin is a decent, if slightly misguided chap, then isn’t there a chance you can still reconcile your needs?’
Rachel was already shaking her head. ‘I don’t want to cling onto false hope. Not when I have my real-life Hope.’ She made a brave attempt at a smile.
‘But I’ll be good, Mummy!’ Hope declared. ‘I won’t sulk and I will really, really try to like him if you promise not to cry any more.’
Rachel kissed her daughter’s forehead then simply breathed her in. When she caught a glance from Bea, she said, ‘It’s all right.’
‘No,’ Bea said firmly. ‘If your daughter’s willing to give it one last try then why not you? Tell him how you feel, tell him you’ve made your choice and now it’s his turn. Give him an ultimatum; you and Hope or nothing at all.’
Still resisting the temptation to cling onto her dreams, Rachel said, ‘We were going to Liverpool next week to look at places to rent, Martin still will be … No, it’s too late. What would be the point?’
‘The point would be that you could use that time to convince him that you come as a package and that he’s lucky to have the chance to have such a beautiful family,’ Bea insisted.
It was Hope who added a dose of reality this time. ‘Nana won’t look after me and Mummy can’t take me with them because Martin’s old car is knackered, isn’t it, mum?’ she said before turning purposefully towards Mrs Wilson. ‘But you could look after me.’
Bea frowned. ‘When?’
‘A week on Saturday,’ Rachel replied, still unconvinced the trip with Martin would be worthwhile.
‘Hmm, a week on Saturday …’ Mrs Wilson said, and then, just when Rachel thought she was going to say no, she added, ‘Actually, I think that might work perfectly.’
‘Are you sure?’ Rachel asked.
‘More than you are by the sounds of it,’ said Bea, who refused to broker any more debate on the matter.