At Home With The Templetons (61 page)

‘She’s left message after message on my phone,’ Tom told her. ‘I haven’t called her back. I can’t talk to her yet.’

Gracie didn’t ask what Nina had said, or how she’d sounded. She didn’t want to know. She needed to see her for herself. ‘I’ll ring you afterwards, as soon as I can,’ Gracie promised.

She stared out at the passing Melbourne streets now, at unfamiliar street names, rows of shops, neat houses, each on their own block of land, all so different from London. The sky was grey, a soft rain falling. She asked the driver how far away they were. Fifteen minutes at the most, he said. She glanced at her watch. She was on time. She’d be early, in fact.

After talking to her mother, she’d tried to rest, even for a little while. She and Tom had barely slept the previous night. Sleep proved impossible. Caught midway between happiness and anxiety, her thoughts were tumbled and tormented as she tried to prepare herself for this meeting. She wasn’t even sure if she could picture Nina any more. It was sixteen years since they’d seen each other. Sixteen years and a lifetime. She thought of the years at Templeton Hall, her friendship with Nina, how much it had meant, how sad she’d been to leave. Then her thoughts leapt forward, to Tom, to the moment they’d met at Paddington Station, her waiting for him, wearing the red coat he’d always loved. Their days in London together, travelling together: Scotland, Ireland, France, Italy. Image

after image flashed into her mind, good times dissolving into the worst of times, the months after the crash, the crash itself …

She glanced at her watch, asked the driver again. Ten minutes away. She tried to imagine how Nina might be feeling now. Angry with her still? Defiant about what she had done? She hadn’t sounded angry on the phone. She had sounded upset. She hadn’t sounded like the Nina Gracie remembered.

More memories flashed into her mind, this time from childhood. Visiting Nina with her father and Spencer that day, asking to borrow Tom. Having cups of tea with her. Painting with her. Talking to her, so much, about everything, calling to see her every day, sometimes more than once a day. She remembered the day of Tom’s cricket match, the party they’d held for him … They’d held the party for Tom that day? Not Nina? Why? That thought sparked other images, of Tom spending so much time at the Hall. He and Spencer running riot, up to mischief all the time, at the dam, on the roof, in their tree house … Tom had practically moved in with the Templetons. He’d loved it at the Hall. He’d told her as much, as they’d travelled around Europe together. They’d talked a lot about those times, their shared memories another bond between them.

Now, though, Gracie tried to imagine how Nina might have felt back then. It must have been hard for her. If she’d had a husband to talk to, other children, perhaps it would have been different. Perhaps it would have been easier to share Tom. But Tom was all Nina had. The centre of her world. The person she loved most in the world. Even as a child, Gracie had somehow seen that. Now, as an adult, after her conversation with her mother, it seemed even clearer.

And if Nina had felt that way about Tom as a child, it must have been magnified a hundred-fold after the accident, when he was so badly injured. All she must have wanted to do was bring him home, keep him safe, protect him from anyone, anything, that could ever hurt him again. Protect him, especially, from the people who had caused the accident.

Protect him from the Templetons. ‘Here you are, love.’

They were in front of Nina’s house. She’d arrived.

She paid, got out, a mass of nerves now. It was a small cottage. A neat front garden. She barely noticed it as she walked up the path. It felt like the longest walk of her life.

Before she had a chance to knock, the front door opened. Nina was standing there. She was wearing a blue dress, boots, even a necklace, as if she’d dressed up especially. She looked older, but with the same dark hair, the same blue eyes.

‘Gracie …’

Gracie stopped short of the door. ‘Hello, Nina.’

There were no smiles between them. No warmth. Only wariness, Gracie realised. On both their sides. And something else coming from Nina. It was fear. She saw it in her eyes. Nina was scared of her.

Nina seemed unable to move or to speak. Gracie glanced down. The other woman’s hands were clenched.

‘May I come in?’

‘Of course. Gracie, of course.’ She stepped back and Gracie followed her, into her living room. She glanced around. It was as colourful as Nina’s farmhouse had been, as beautifully decorated as the apartment in the Hall - bright paintings, warm-hued rugs, cheerful curtains. Young Gracie would have exclaimed over them. Now, Gracie said nothing.

She turned, seeing that expression on Nina’s face again. Fear and something else. Nina looked sad. Desperately sad, and somehow defeated. As if she was waiting for one final blow. A blow from Gracie? Is that what she was expecting? A furious tirade?

This time Nina broke the silence. ‘Can I get you anything? Tea? A drink?’

Gracie shook her head. She couldn’t pretend this was a normal visit. She couldn’t even make any more polite conversation. ‘Why, Nina? Why did you do it? Not just to Tom but to me too?’

There was a split-second when she saw something flicker across Nina’s face, something raw, something almost angry, then just as quickly it disappeared. Nina seemed to crumple in front of her, down into an armchair. ‘I can’t explain, Gracie. I can’t.’

Once, Gracie would have rushed to her side, tried to console her. Now, she made herself stay still, kept her voice even. ‘You have to, Nina. You have to. We need to know.’

The ‘we’ registered. Nina looked up, her face still anguished, her eyes filled with tears. ‘Have you seen Tom?’ At Gracie’s nod, another question. ‘Is it … will it be all right between you?’

It was too new with Tom, too precious, too fragile yet. She didn’t answer. ‘Why did you do it, Nina? Why did you lie?’

‘If you had seen him, Gracie ‘

‘I wanted to, Nina. I wanted to do everything I could for him.’

Nina shook her head. ‘He was a different person. He was broken. He was so frightened, in so much pain. His whole life changed in that accident, Gracie.’

‘All our lives changed, Nina.’

It was as if Nina hadn’t heard her. ‘All his life, all I’d ever wanted to do was protect him, give him the best life I could, and yet I’d failed him ‘

‘It wasn’t you, Nina. It was me. I was the driver. It was my fault.’ Gracie was surprised at the strength in her own voice. She was no longer a child talking to Nina. She was an adult. The eight years of sadness, of grief, of soul-searching and worry seemed to have crystallised inside her, giving her strength, keeping her steady. ‘I hadn’t been drinking, but it was my fault. I lost concentration and I ran into the truck. It could have been me injured or Spencer hurt, but it was Tom and I will never be able to forgive myself for that. Ever. But I still need the truth from you. Why didn’t you give him my letters? Why didn’t you send his letters to me? Why did you lie to us both?’

‘I had to. I had to.’

‘No, you didn’t. I would have helped him. My whole family could have helped him.’

‘We didn’t want

your help.’ Nina’s voice had sudden force. ‘Can’t you see that? He was my son, Gracie. My responsibility, not yours.’ Tears were running down Nina’s face but she didn’t wipe them away.

‘He was an adult, Nina.’ Gracie was on less firm ground now. She’d expected excuses from Nina. Not this raw feeling. ‘He wasn’t a child any more.’

‘He was still my son, Gracie. He always was my son, before your family came along and again after you all left.’ Nina stood up then too, the tears gone, the words pouring from her: sharp, angry words. ‘You Templetons always had everything, didn’t you? Whatever you wanted. All that money, all that charm, even the Hall just fell into your laps. It was always so easy for all of you, with your perfect lives, the perfect family ‘

‘No, Nina!’ Gracie couldn’t let her get away with this. ‘It was never easy for us, for any of us. There was nothing perfect about any of us. Not then, not now. Why do you think I spent so much time with you, at your house? I needed someone like you in my life, Nina. And you’re wrong about the Hall falling into our laps too. I only heard the whole story today. We never owned it. We didn’t inherit it. My father leased it.’

Nina’s expression changed. ‘Leased it? It wasn’t yours? It isn’t yours?’

Gracie shook her head. ‘My father lied about it. To all of us.’ Nina’s reaction shocked her. She laughed. It wasn’t a nice laugh. ‘What a surprise.’

Gracie stared at her. The mood had changed in the room and she didn’t like it or understand it. She needed to take back control of the conversation again. ‘I’m not here to talk about the Hall, Nina. I just need to understand why you did what you did to Tom and me. Then I’ll go. You won’t ever need to see me again.’

Her words had an instant effect on Nina. ‘Gracie, I have to know. Is Tom all right? Will he ever speak to me again?’

She told the truth. ‘I don’t know.’

‘He won’t. I know he won’t.’ Nina started to cry again, talking quickly, not even looking at Gracie now. ‘He won’t answer my calls. Hilary won’t talk to me either. And I deserve it. I deserve it.’ She looked at Gracie then. ‘But at least you came to see me, Gracie. Thank you. Thank you.’

Gracie felt strangely unmoved by Nina’s tears. ‘I don’t want your thanks, Nina. I don’t even want an apology. I just need you to explain why you did it.’

‘Gracie, please, sit down. Please.’

She sat down. As Nina began to talk, Gracie didn’t move, didn’t interrupt, just watched and listened as the words poured from Nina, a tumble of words, punctuated by tears, of her fears, her loneliness, her anguish and grief after her husband died, her love for Tom, the need - the desperate, all-consuming need - to protect him from harm, to give him the best life she could. She spoke about her pride in his achievements at school, with his cricket, and the realisation that he was growing independent of her, that he wouldn’t always be the centre of her life any more, that he was growing away from her, just as happy away from her, staying with his friends, or at Templeton Hall. Especially at Templeton Hall …

She looked at Gracie directly then, meeting her eyes for the first time since she’d begun to talk. ‘I can’t expect you to understand, Gracie, the love a mother can feel for her son, but he was everything to me. He always had been, and when I saw him in the hospital in Rome, when I thought I’d almost lost him forever, I had to do everything I could for him, I had to protect him, do whatever it took ‘

‘No, Nina!’ The anger inside Gracie spilled into the room with sudden ferocity. ‘You didn’t have to do it. You were wrong then and you’re wrong now. You don’t think I know how it feels to love someone and have them be taken away? To miss them so much, every single day, that it hurts?’ She couldn’t stop talking now, even as she saw Nina had more to say. ‘You think I can’t understand how you might have felt? Be feeling now? I understand more than you will ever know. I loved Tom, Nina. And he loved me. We were young, we still are young, but we knew what we felt then. We feel it still now. Whatever you tried to do to us didn’t work. Tom didn’t need your permission to be with me back then, and nor did I. We still don’t.’ She stood up then and reached for her bag.

‘Gracie, please, no. Don’t go.’ Nina’s tone was urgent. ‘I’m sorry, Gracie. I’m so very sorry for hurting you. For hurting Tom. I had so many reasons, I promise you, but I can’t … it’s not … I don’t know how to …’ She started to cry again then, sobs from deep inside her. ‘What do I do, Gracie? What do I do if he never wants to talk to me again?’

‘I’m sorry, Nina. I don’t know.’

Nina started to cry harder then, her face hidden in her hands. ‘I’m sorry, Gracie. I’m so, so sorry, for everything.’

Gracie watched for a moment. For a second, she was a child again, there with Nina sixteen years ago. She did now what she would have done then. She walked across to the other woman and for a second, just a second, touched her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry too, Nina.’

Nina was still crying when Gracie let herself out.

Three days later, Gracie was at the airport waiting for Tom’s flight from Perth to land. They’d spoken before his flight left. They’d spoken. many times, every day, about her visit to Nina, about what she had said, what they had both said. Gracie had relived her meeting with Nina again and again. She’d felt rushes of anger, felt sadness, pity, so many different emotions towards her. She’d talked about it with Tom, the two of them still trying to make sense of Nina’s actions. Was understanding even possible? Was forgiveness? And if not, what was the alternative? Never speaking to Nina again? Cutting off all contact? Putting her through all the pain they’d experienced? Back and forth their conversations had gone. They’d talked about so many things, their past, the missing eight years, their future. So much seemed possible now. There were so many plans to make together. A life to make together. But each conversation had come back to Nina. What happened next with her was entirely in their hands, they realised. They could choose to hurt her, to punish her as she had hurt them. Or they could somehow keep trying to understand why she had done what she’d done. Find some way to forgive her.

That morning, Tom had rung Gracie and told her he had just spoken to his mother. He’d decided he would go and see her. Not immediately, but when the time felt right. She hadn’t asked him for more detail. Not yet. Whatever happened next had to be between him and Nina.

Now, waiting for his plane to arrive, she felt as nervous, as excited, as if this was their first reunion. She paced the terminal. She checked the monitors every five minutes, in case his plane arrived early. She sat for a few minutes at the arrivals gate before her nerves made her resume her pacing. She browsed in a bookstore, looked at souvenirs, walked past a small clothes shop.

It was there she saw it, hanging on the front rack. A red coat like the one she used to have in London. As they’d travelled together, as they’d shyly swapped stories of when they’d first fallen in love with each other, Tom had always mentioned the moment he saw her waiting for him at Paddington Station wearing her red coat. It suddenly seemed urgent that she was wearing red again this time too. She tried it on. It was a perfect fit.