‘Go ahead,’ said Joy, breaking out of the hug to watch Monty pulling the gift from his back pocket.
‘I didn’t have time to wrap it. Sorry, Radia.’
‘You can still call me Rads,’ the little girl reminded him, taking the gift with huge eyes.
‘It’s a pencil case that’s a calculatoranda notebook,’ Monty said, ‘like you wanted.’
‘It’s Hello Kitty!’ Radia screeched, jumping at Monty for a hug. ‘Thank you!’ She was gone again in an instant, asking her aunt to take off the cellophane so she could play with it, and Monty was left holding the spot where the little girl had ferociously kissed his cheek.
‘You didn’t have to get her anything,’ Joy told him.
‘I wanted to. I want her to be happy.’
Joy looked to her daughter. ‘That’s all I want.’
Monty sighed hard. ‘OK. Time to go. I’ll be seeing you?’ he said, trying to sound casual, like this was fine, like there wasn’t something else he desperately wanted to say, something enormous.
Joy’s feet seemed stuck to the sea wall.
‘Call me when you get home?’ he asked.
‘I’ll call you from the Services when Radia needs her first wee. Reckon that’ll be,’ she checked her wrist, ‘in about twenty minutes.’
Monty smiled and delivered one last swift kiss to her lips. Anything else and he’d fall down at her feet.
Joy watched him pull away, her chest heaving and she tried to take the first step away from him.
‘Right,’ she said.
‘OK,’ he nodded.
But her feet still wouldn’t move and her heart wouldn’t budge.
‘Mummy, are we going?’ shouted Radia, and Joy turned to look at her daughter, dark hair against the blue of the water in the harbour, the September sunlight making her eyes shine.
‘Do youwantto go, Radia?’ Joy heard herself say, and Patti’s head turned.
‘Doyou?’ Radia asked back, and all three sets of eyes peered intently at the breathless, gasping Joyce Foley as she turned between Monty Bickleigh and the gleaming, bustling village of Clove Lore clinging to the valley above them.
Chapter Thirty-five
‘I’ll be right here, waiting for you.’
‘Two o’clock?’ said Radia, her hair done in the stubby pigtails she’d insisted upon, clutching at the hem of the blue-and-white-checked dress that she’d been so proud to put on that morning.
‘Two o’clock,’ said Joy, kissing her yet again. ‘Have a lovely,lovelyday.’ The words came out shakily and the teaching assistant, sensing tears, swiftly intervened, whisking Radia inside.
Seeing her now amongst her classmates, it was obvious Radia was taller than the lot of them, but the fearless girl didn’t seem to mind. She was grinning unselfconsciously.
Joy heard the TA telling Radia she’d show her to her peg – ‘It’s got your name on it!’ And before Joy could steel herself for it, Radia, not once looking back, disappeared out of sight.
Joy’s chest heaved in a great terrified, proud, heartbroken convulsion that she hid behind a pained smile like all the other mums saying goodbye to their babies, who somehow, miraculously, had transformed in the blink of an eye into a school child.
‘Right, grown-ups,’ said the head teacher, ‘off you go. Cup of tea and deep breaths. We’ll look after them, I promise.’
Joy clasped her coat shut at the neck and turned to where Patti was waiting, leaning on the railings and holding up her phone. ‘I got some lovely pictures,’ she said weepily.
Joy wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. ‘What now, then?’ she asked her sister, who only turned and gestured with a bob of her head a little way down the road to where Monty was standing, hands in his pockets, still wary of over-interfering in family stuff.
