Chances (30 page)

They sat in a silence that was as steady as it was awkward. Then Tim tapped the table. ‘Right!’ he said. ‘I’d better be off!’ He kissed her clumsily on the forehead but he kept his lips there. ‘I love you,’ he whispered. ‘Always have. Always will.’

And then Tim left.

It no longer crossed Vita’s mind to even wonder where he’d be going, let alone fret about it. All she wanted to do was to lock up and go home. She was doing chops and chips for supper, for Jonty and Oliver. And they were bringing the dessert.

‘What’s up?’ Oliver had been watching Vita for a few minutes, lying next to him in bed, her eyes busy tracing imaginary patterns on the ceiling. It was mid-November. Fireworks and pumpkins were gone, many of the trees were bare but it seemed the world was in good spirits and just starting to gear up for Christmas.

‘Nothing’s up.’

‘Fibber. I know you, Vita.’

‘Nothing’s up. Actually, I was just thinking we ought to get up and start thinking about lunch because Mum is usually early.’

‘Fibber. It’s nine o’clock on a Sunday morning. I might be cack-handed in the kitchen but not even I can take three whole hours to prepare a roast.’

‘Actually, I was just wondering if we ought to ring Jonty, you know, to see if he wants a lift back. I should hate for him to be late.’

‘Fibber. He won’t be late – he likes her. Remember how well they rubbed together at his school fireworks? Anyway, my son’s abnormally prompt for a teenager – and you know that too.’

Oliver propped himself up, placing his arms either side of her, dipping his face to kiss one nipple and then the other.

‘What’s up, missy?’

‘I don’t want to tell you.’ She turned her face.

Oliver used his nose, his lips, to nudge it back to him. ‘You can tell me anything.’ He could see how hard she was trying to fathom out if she really could. He returned to his side of the bed, lay on his side and stroked her hair. He liked her new cut, it really suited her. It had been Michelle’s idea. She’d pampered Vita with all sorts of treatments on her birthday last week. Oliver had bought her a watch and Jonty had given her a T-shirt emblazoned with the PainMeister album cover on it, because Vita was always saying she thought they were cool.

She turned to Oliver. ‘I’m very nervous about saying this.’

He nodded.

They nestled down into their pillows.

‘What’s up?’ he asked again. She looked into his face and knew she could tell him.

‘I have come into a family where there is one child – by choice.’

‘You don’t like my boy?’ Oliver smiled gently and managed to coax one out of Vita.

‘I love your boy, silly,’ she said. She put out her hand and touched his face, ran her fingers along his arm and found his hand under the pillow. ‘I mean – you wanted one child, didn’t you? You and DeeDee chose to have Jonty as your only child.’ She could see that Oliver was concentrating hard on what she was saying. ‘It’s just – it’s just. I have – Oh God – if I say this it’s going to change everything.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Oliver – I would like to have a baby. That’s the problem. That’s what’s up.’

‘You’re now thirty-four,’ he said.

She nodded.

‘Seems perfectly natural to me.’

‘But – you? Jonty?’

‘What about us?’

She paused. ‘It’s not what you want.’

Oliver found his eyes wandering to the invisible maze on the ceiling that Vita had been scouring earlier on.

‘How do you know what I don’t want?’

‘Because you said – you told me. About being Bourne Three – you and DeeDee only wanted one child. The problem is, I want one too. Perhaps more than one.’

‘Are you saying you’d like to have a baby with me?’

She nodded. ‘I would really love to have a baby with you.’

‘Wow,’ he said, staring fixedly at the ceiling.

‘That’s the problem,’ Vita whispered. ‘I know it’s not what you want. I know your life plan with DeeDee was for just the one. And Jonty is so perfect. Plus, you’ve done the nappy thing and the sleepless nights and the potty training and teething – all of it. I’m frightened, Oliver. We want very different things.’

Oliver spoke quietly. ‘You are quite right – fifteen, well, I guess almost sixteen years ago – DeeDee and I, together, decided on one child. But that was with DeeDee. Vita – you and I, together, can plan another. And another – if we so decide.’ He turned to Vita. ‘It doesn’t have to follow that what was right for DeeDee and me, need be right for you and me.’

‘Really?’

‘Truly,’ said Oliver.

‘But Jonty?’

‘Free babysitting?’

‘Seriously!’

‘He’s a beautiful boy – and if it wasn’t for him, I’d still have your cagoule in the back of my car.’

‘But the disruption, Oliver?’

Oliver shrugged. ‘It’s part and parcel, Vita,’ he said.

‘I’m nervous,’ she said.

‘I am too.’

‘How do we do it?’

Oliver smiled. He kissed her nose, found her mouth. ‘Well, we have a kiss and a cuddle, then I put my manhood in your lady bits and we jiggle about for a while and then—’

‘Stop it, you daft bugger!’

He was kissing her neck. ‘We just practise – practise until we make something perfect.’

‘Are you
sure
?’

‘I make great babies – you can trust me.’

‘I mean, are you
sure
sure?’

‘Vita – I am positive. In every sense of the word.’

And she was kissing him back. The winter light which silvered its way into the room spoke of thick frost outside, giving them all the more reason to hunker down under the duvet. The condoms remained in the bedside drawer. The sex was intense and silent, illuminated by the grins they gave each other which turned lovemaking into baby making. As Oliver came, both he and Vita marvelled at the closeness two human beings could attain.

* * *

Ruth Whitbury brought dessert. She made trifle because Jonty had requested it, having tasted her speciality when first meeting her at lunch at Vita’s some weeks ago. She’d also come, with Oliver and Vita, to his school fireworks display a couple of weekends ago. That time, she’d brought with her hot baked potatoes wrapped in cloth napkins just to hold, to keep their hands warm, and Jonty had decided that she’d make an excellent surrogate granny.

‘Do you think they’ll mind – Gran and Grandad?’ he’d asked Oliver a little while ago. ‘Do you think they’ll mind that I like Ruth so much?’

‘You know, Jonty, I didn’t know what they’d think – how they’d feel – when I told them about Vita,’ Oliver confided back. ‘But they’re brilliant people – and they seemed genuinely happy for us.’

‘So they won’t feel left out if I have Ruth too?’

‘I think they’ll be very pleased for you. After all, you never knew my folks. Anyway, I think they’d all get on famously, don’t you? Grandad especially – Gran can chinwag to her heart’s content and he’ll be able to doze off in front of the telly without being poked the whole time.’

‘True.’

‘Shall we invite them all for Christmas?’

‘Shall we?’

‘I don’t know – that’s why I’m asking you.’

‘How the heck are you and I going to do a whole Christmas lunch – for
guests
? It was all right, last year – we ate what we wanted.’

Oliver remembered the mountain of Marks & Spencer ready-meal trays by the close of Boxing Day. ‘The beauty of extending our family is that we’ll end up doing less. Ruth will say, What can I bring? Gran and Grandad will come laden anyway. And Vita will do that bossy thing of hers and shoo us from the kitchen. You and I can kick back and watch
Harry Potter
because we’ve been all but told to.’

‘Genius!’

‘Is that the plan, then, Jont?’

‘Cool.’

‘Done a list for Santa yet?’

‘It’s only just been Guy Fawkes, Dad – you’re as bad as Tesco. Anyway, Santa doesn’t exist.’

‘Oh, don’t say that!’

‘Dad – you’re so lame.’

‘Is
lame
a good thing or a bad thing?’

‘Dad!’

And Oliver thought, How much more blessed can a man be than to have the love of close family all around him?

He left Vita preparing lunch while he collected Ruth en route to picking up Jonty. Ruth didn’t know where Jonty’s friend Mark lived and so was unaware of the detour Oliver took.

‘I love your daughter very much,’ he said. They were listening to
The Archers
omnibus so his statement appeared to come out of the blue. To Ruth, at least. Oliver had been on the verge of saying it many times during the course of the journey. ‘And at some point soon I’d like to ask her to make an honest man of me.’ He kept driving, sensing Ruth’s eyes on him, quietly assessing his words.

‘Thank you,’ she said at length, and she tapped his leg. He tapped hers back. ‘You’re just what she needs,’ said Vita’s mum.

Jonty gave Ruth a guided tour while Oliver got under Vita’s feet in the kitchen, picking at things and asking her to make plenty of gravy. He was summarily banished to the sitting room. He could hear footfalls creaking around upstairs and he wondered what Ruth would make of Jonty’s room. Would she in any way judge his parenting skills by his condoning black and red paint and posters with skulls and daggers and band names like Rodekill and HellWhole. DeeDee would have laughed and called him silly. Which is pretty much what Vita did. How was he so lucky that the love he’d found in his life had been with two such different and yet similar women?

It won’t ever be Oliver’s style to consider how luck has played only a part; to credit himself for inspiring the love that’s come his way.

‘Ruth saw the Rolling Stones in Hyde Park!’ Jonty blustered into the room.

‘Did you?’

‘I did. July fifth, 1969.’

‘And the Beatles,’ Jonty exclaimed.

‘Hammersmith, tenth December 1965,’ said Ruth. ‘Couldn’t hear a thing though – all that ridiculous wailing and screaming. Myself included, I hasten to add.’

‘Have you heard of PainMeister?’ Jonty asked her. ‘They’re awesome, Ruth. I bought Vita the T-shirt for her birthday. I’ll play you some, if you like. I’ll make you a CD.’

‘I have cassettes and vinyl.’

‘What’s that?’ Jonty asked. He shrugged. ‘I’ll lend you my iPod.’

‘What’s that?’ Ruth asked.

‘Your ears will bleed,’ Oliver warned her.

Ruth winked at Jonty who grinned back.

She looked out of the window to the garden. It was as dull and dank outside as it was warm and colourful inside. She turned her attention into the room and politely complimented Oliver on the comfort of the armchair, the pleasantness of the colour schemes, the impressive quantity of books.

‘What a monstrous television set,’ she said.

‘Thanks!’ said Jonty and Ruth laughed.

Then the photos caught her eye. ‘Come and tell me who’s who,’ she said and Jonty went over to the shelves with her.

Oliver thought, Clever lady – you want to hear him annotate them, for you to deduce whether I’m rushing the child into accepting another woman in his life. He wasn’t offended. He knew Ruth was acting both as a mother to a child who had been hurt, as well as a parent who’d lost a partner when her own child had been a similar age to Jonty.

‘Wasn’t your mum pretty as a picture,’ she said.

‘I have her eyes,’ Jonty said.

‘I’ll bet you have so much more than just her eyes,’ said Ruth. She was touched that Oliver and Jonty had a photo of Vita framed and placed next to one of DeeDee. She wanted to tell DeeDee, You can trust Vita, dear – she’ll look after your boys. She wanted to tell her late husband, you’d be so proud of your daughter, she’s done very well for herself. And she wanted to tell Jonty something too.

‘You know, Jonty, despite everything, you are lucky,’ she said to him. ‘You’ve had a lot of love in your life.’

Jonty nodded. Then he looked gently confused. ‘Bit mental, then, isn’t it – that I like bands called Deathdrive and Rodekill and Slicer.’

Ruth shook her head. ‘I’ll bet you, under those angry shouty voices, if you analyse their lyrics, they mostly sing about love.’

‘Grub’s up,’ Vita called.

‘Would you like some help?’ Oliver asked.

‘Please,’ said Vita. ‘Everyone can take a dish in – that should do it.’

‘Ruth,’ said Oliver, ‘please, take a seat.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Ruth, bustling off into the kitchen ahead of him and Jonty.

Father and son looked at each other. Christmas had the potential to be very good indeed.

‘He’s a very funny guy, your Oliver,’ Michelle was saying as she piled items on the counter in Vita’s shop. ‘That was a top night, on Saturday. Chris really likes him. I
love
him. Oh – and Jake wants to be Jonty when he grows up. God – these are gorgeous! Are they porcelain? Have you any more stars? They’ll look stunning on the tree.’

Vita went to the shop’s Christmas tree and unhooked two more porcelain stars. ‘Will two do?’

‘I’ll take more – if you can spare them.’

Vita took down another two. ‘I’d better leave some.’

‘You mean for the general public who don’t get a discount?’

Vita laughed. ‘Something like that.’ She started running the items through the till.

‘So – Boxing Day will be fun,’ said Michelle. ‘Candy’s lot are coming after lunch – but you come whenever you’re ready.’

‘And it’s OK for Mum to come?’

‘Of course! DeeDee’s parents can come too.’

‘Oh, they’re coming at New Year now. Are you sure you want twelve of these?’ Vita held up a small wooden angel made from an old-fashioned clothes peg.

‘Quite sure,’ said Michelle.

‘That’ll be – oh God – I can’t charge you that!’

‘Now look, I can spend my money here – or I can go to John Lewis. And by the way, that’s too much discount. Ten per cent is more than adequate.’

Vita acquiesced, reluctantly took Michelle’s credit card and popped it into the reader. ‘Would you like anything gift-wrapped?’

‘Great idea – can you wrap the scented hangers and the wall sconce?’

Vita opened the drawer where the paper, scissors, sticky tape and ribbons were kept. And she stopped.

‘You OK?’

‘Yes,’ she said slowly. She brought something out onto the table. It was wrapped in Christmas paper. ‘I did this ages ago – and she hasn’t been in.’

‘Who hasn’t?’

‘My mad old lady.’

‘The kleptomaniac?’

‘Yes.’

‘Take it round to her.’

‘I don’t know where she lives. I don’t even know her name. She hasn’t been in for over a month. That’s not like her.’

‘Maybe she’s gone to family, for the festive season?’

‘I hope so,’ said Vita. ‘I hope she’s OK. I told you about the Trysting Tree?’

‘You did, my dear.’ Michelle laughed.

‘Many times?’ Vita cringed.

‘Many times, V.’

‘It’s been a long year,’ Vita said. ‘And I’m tired.’

‘Tired?’ Michelle gave her a knowing look. ‘What kind of tired? Sore-boobs-and-morning-sickness tired?’

‘Not yet,’ said Vita, ‘but not for want of trying.’

‘That’s my girl,’ said Michelle.

* * *

No sooner had Christmas been and gone and the New Year welcomed in and helped on its way with sales, discounts and slashed prices, than Vita found herself in a sea of love. She was surrounded by hearts and cherubs and turtle doves and many other items variously in pinks and reds when a gentleman came into That Shop carrying a box. She assumed it was a delivery – Valentine’s Day was big business and the merchandise tended to be small and pricey, invariably wrapped and packed to the nines.

‘Love is a licence to print money,’ she’d told Oliver and Jonty.

‘Dad doesn’t do flowers,’ Jonty warned. ‘He’ll probably buy you a sapling or something.’

‘That’ll do,’ Vita laughed.

Oliver had pretended not to be listening. Damn, and the sapling was already hidden behind the shed at work.

Now, sitting in the shop in a tangle of pink ribbon and lovey-dovey froth, Vita wondered what else she could possibly have ordered that hadn’t yet been delivered.

‘Are you Vita? The owner of this shop That Shop?’

The man was like a Dickens character. His voice, extra vagantly deep and quite pompous, complemented a bulbous nose and a three-piece suit, the waistcoat stretched tight over his corpulent stomach.

‘Yes – that’s me.’

‘Mr Reddington-Foulkes,’ he said, looking round for somewhere to put the box so he could shake her hand. He had to make do with waggling the ends of his fingers at her.

‘Am I expecting you?’

‘No one ever expects me,’ he said. ‘May I put this down somewhere?’

Vita motioned to the side of the table where the till was.

‘I’m here on behalf of Elsie Mackenzie.’

And Vita was just about to say, But I don’t know an Elsie Mackenzie, when he spoke again.

‘The
late
Elsie Mackenzie.’

Vita still didn’t know an Elsie Mackenzie; early, late, living or dead.

‘Are you sure you have the right person?’

‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘She left you some items. In her will.’ He motioned to the box. ‘These are for you. I have another box in the car, which I shall now go and collect.’

Vita thought of phoning her mother, to ask her if Elsie Mackenzie rang a bell. But curiosity saw her head directly to the box.

There was a label on it.

Messrs Reddington-Foulkes & Smythe
Estate of E. Mackenzie

She took one of the mother-of-pearl-handled letter knives and sliced through the tape over the flaps. Inside, wodges of shredded paper. And beneath those, items of varying sizes wrapped in plain newsprint paper. She took one, peeled back layer after layer and when a wooden duck appeared Vita thought, How funny! I used to stock these right here in the shop! It was only when she unwrapped the next and found an unopened tube of Gardener’s Handcream, that she sat down heavily and stared at the box in stunned silence. Mr Reddington-Foulkes had come in again, with another box, only slightly smaller.

‘Are you all right, my dear?’

‘Is it?’ said Vita. ‘Was she? Has she
died
?’

‘Yes, my dear.’

‘But when?’

‘December the twelfth. Peacefully, I am pleased to report. At the St John Hospice.’

‘I didn’t know her name. I thought of her as my Mad Old Lady.’

The solicitor tipped his head. He’d heard it all, over the years. Heard a hell of a lot worse than Mad Old Lady.

‘All this stuff,’ Vita said, ‘why is it for me?’

‘Because it was hers,’ the man said. ‘She’d organized everything. She had it all packed with notes dotted here and there. Very clear, she was, very clear indeed – about who should have what. Not that there were many beneficiaries.’

Vita wasn’t going to tell him what these items were.

‘Sign, please.’

She signed.

‘Good day.’

‘Goodbye,’ she said. And when he reached the door she cried, ‘Wait!’ He turned. ‘Do you know, please, where she’s buried?’

‘At the Wynford North cemetery.’

‘Thank you,’ said Vita, ‘thank you very much.’

It surprised Vita just how sad she felt. She’d phoned Oliver, asking him to collect her at closing time on account of the boxes to take home and she sobbed all the way back. Jonty made scrambled eggs for everyone. After they ate, they listened to Vita reminisce about Elsie. After that, while Oliver loaded the dishwasher and made tea, Jonty helped Vita with the unwrapping. Many of the items she’d forgotten about, others she was quite stunned to see again.

‘How on earth did she fit
that
into a pocket?’ Jonty asked, marvelling at a barley-twist candlestick.

‘Look!’ said Vita unwrapping another. ‘She swiped the pair of them!’ She paused as she looked around her, it was like sitting amidst a history of That Shop. ‘She said to me once that she just liked
pretty things.
’

Oliver came in with tea. Jonty passed Vita the tissues.

‘That’s the lot, I think,’ said Vita as the three of them wondered whether they’d have to pack it all away now.

‘Mrs Blackthorne is coming tomorrow,’ Oliver said. ‘I’m sure she won’t mind.’

Vita looked at him aghast – just the way DeeDee used to when he’d say, Oh, leave it for Mrs Blackthorne.

‘But what am I to do with all of these?’ Vita said. ‘They’ve already been written off in various stocktakes over the years and anyway, it seems inappropriate to sell them – they’re
possessions
.’

‘Why not donate them?’ Oliver suggested. ‘Why not contact the hospice who looked after her? They’ll have fund-raising events, I’m sure.’

‘Hang on – there’s one more thing left,’ said Jonty, ‘right at the bottom.’

It was flat, too flat to be a book and too smooth to be a photo frame. Vita unwrapped it. It was a piece of wood, a slither an inch thick, about the size of a shoebox lid.

‘Gorgeous grain,’ said Oliver. ‘
Sorbus
– whitebeam at a guess. What did you sell it as?’

‘I didn’t,’ said Vita. ‘This isn’t one of mine.’

‘Odd.’

‘Yes.’

‘A plain piece of wood,’ Vita said. ‘I love how the ends are unpolished and rough.’

Then she turned it over to find it wasn’t plain at all. It was inscribed, beautifully.

I nor wealth nor titles bring,
But I love, and love I sing.

‘I know those lines,’ Vita murmured, wracking her brains for how.

‘I know where they are,’ said Oliver, tracing his fingers over the engraved lettering. ‘They’re on the Trysting Tree.’ He took the plaque over to the bookcase, moved a photo of DeeDee and Jonty along a little and positioned it carefully on the shelf.

* * *

There was one gift Vita wouldn’t be donating to the hospice, one gift she wanted Elsie to have. And so, when the craziness of Valentine’s Day was over and That Shop paused for breath before gearing itself up for Easter, Vita went to Wynford North cemetery, taking the unopened Christmas gift with her. Elsie wasn’t easy to find but when Vita finally located her she broke into a broad, teary smile. Vita had always thought of Elsie as slightly batty – but also as a loner; a mad old spinster, perhaps, who probably lived in a flat with piles of newspapers and all the ill-gotten gains.

Not so.

The headstone told a very different story. Robert Mackenzie had died twenty-seven years ago. Beloved husband of Elsie. And under his dates were Elsie’s. Elizabeth Mackenzie. She’d been seventy-eight when she died. Vita stooped and placed the gift, unopened, on the grave.

‘There you go,’ she said. ‘From me to you. Sorry you didn’t have it for Christmas.’ She paused. ‘I shall miss you.’ She paused again. ‘But I’ll think of you often. And especially next time I go to the Tristan.’