Diane’s eyes emptied. There was a long silence. Slowly, she touched Tamzin’s hand. ‘Thanks. I won’t keep you if you want to get off to bed now.’ A tear welled and skittered down her cheek. She batted it away with the back of her hand, lurching to her feet and turning blindly.
Tamzin scraped back her chair, seeing a danger with sudden appalling clarity. ‘Careful!’
But James was already there, snatching at Diane before her hand made contact with the chrome kettle. As if it was one shock too many, Diane piped out a sound between a laugh and a sob. And, without either of them seeming to do more than sway, James’s comforting arms were around Diane and Diane’s head was on his shoulder, and James was pushing her plait out of the way so that he could pat her back, murmuring that he was sorry that she’d had so many bolts from the blue and Diane hiccupping that it was hardly his fault.
Tamzin returned slowly to her chair. Her father was well weird, the way he seemed to be able to care for just about everybody in the world.
Chapter Three
Diane dialled carefully, preparing for that little pain at hearing Bryony’s voice, so real, clear, dear and familiar, when she was actually so heartbreakingly far away.
But Bryony had to be told about Gareth before she disappeared off to work at the orphanage.
She gripped the handset. A succession of clicks. The ringing tone. It rang for a long time but it was six in the morning in Brasilia, although ten a.m. in Purtenon St. Paul. One of the girls Bryony shared with answered eventually with a cross, ‘Yeah?’ Six girls lived in the same house, although so far as the landlord knew there were only four.
‘Can you get Bryony for me, please? This is her mum.’
‘Jussa minute.’
Usually, Diane would wait out such delays tense with frustration that her frugal five minutes was ticking away.
But today she was unconcerned at racking up the phone bill. Gareth could afford it.
Bryony’s arrival on the other end of the line was surprisingly quick, her voice high with alarm. ‘Mum? It’s so early! Are you all right?’ Her young, over-emphatic voice rushed from the phone.
‘Hello, darling.’ For a second, Diane couldn’t find any further words. Her instinct was always to protect Bryony, not to be the one to cause her pain. She hugged herself, longing to hold her daughter. ‘I’m fine – I’m afraid it’s Dad. He’s not in any danger but he was in a crash –’
A gasp. ‘Oh myGod! How bad –?’
‘He’s very bashed up but the important thing is that he’ll heal. But he’s broken his right arm and fingers, both legs and his pelvis.’
She dealt patiently with three minutes of, ‘Oh, myGod,’ and, ‘Socan’t believe it!’ before Bryony’s common sense began to function, ‘Should I come home?’
Diane was ready with a firm reply. ‘No, don’t come haring back, he’s quite out of it at the moment and you’d just be wasting your opportunity in Brazil.’
Bryony sounded relieved. ‘Because I will, of course … but it would take ages to get the dosh together to come back.’
‘That’s why I don’t think you should do anything hasty.’Dad could pay.
‘Keep me in touch, then. I wish you had a computer, Mum. I could get you fixed up with Skype and we could talk for, like, nearly nothing. Tell Dad …’ She paused. ‘Tell him I’m thinking of him.’
‘Of course I will.’ It wasn’t until she put the phone down that she realised Bryony hadn’t said, ‘Give Dad my love.’ She sighed, standing alone in the tiny, white-painted hallway, the cold striking up from the chipped tiles and chilling her feet. Bryony and Gareth not getting on well in the months before Bryony went away had troubled Diane, but Gareth and Bryony had each shrugged off her anxious enquiries.
She wiped her eyes. She hadn’t broken the news about Gareth’s secret family – Bryony’s family, too. She was still wrestling with that.
James North returned in the early afternoon driving Gareth’s silver Peugeot with Tamzin following in a dark grey Lexus. Pausing in her task of gazing glumly at her white, crumpled, sleep-deprived reflection in the tiny mirror on the wall, through the kitchen window Diane watched them arrive. ‘Damn.’ An abortive attempt at daytime napping had left her head thick and throbbing with the horrible realisation that her life was emptying fast, her marriage even faster and her husband was a phoney.
And now she had to face the man she’d wept all over last night and his waif-like daughter.
She watched James stride up the garden path, Tamzin dawdling behind. She opened the door and James dangled the keys that normally lived in Gareth’s pocket. ‘I’ve brought your car back – thought you’d need it for hospital visiting.’
‘Thank you, I’d begun to wonder where it was. Where had he left it?’
‘At the flying club. The keys were retrieved from the ’copter wreckage, so the police gave them to me.’
‘Right.’ Diane smiled at Tamzin to avoid the sympathy in James’s eyes. Tamzin was so slender that her head seemed too heavy for her neck. Even her freckles looked too big. Somewhere in her chest, Diane felt compassion stir. ‘How’s your grandfather today?’
A small smile. ‘Better after some sleep. How about Uncle Gareth?’
