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‘Good heavens! This is amazing!’ Rose exclaimed.

‘Pretty wacky,’ said James drily.

She went back and forth from the small drawings to the outlines on the canvas, peering closely and then stepping back, and close again. Finally she said, ‘It really is wonderful, James. If you pull this off as you intend, you’ll have done something quite extraordinary.’

‘Thanks,’ he said matter of factly.

‘It makes me realise the limits of my own talent. You have this gift of seeing things through completely different eyes. Whole other worlds. I’m in awe.’

James shrugged uncomfortably. ‘And I can’t even thread a needle, let alone create clothes from scratch. Different strokes, y’know?’

‘Oh, very well, James,’ she said, smiling. ‘So. From water to forest. No more people?’

‘Maybe the next one. I’ve been thinking of a family scene.’

‘Yes?’

‘Yeah. All of us, and you. Kind of vicarious – what do you call it? What’s the word for getting rid of guilt?’

‘Expiation, I think. Absolving? But what do you have to feel guilty about?’

‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? Keeping you to myself for all that time, Rose. Leaving the others out.’

‘That seems such a little thing to me, James. Relatively.’

‘Yeah, well, the others didn’t think so! But they all stopped being mad at me once it came out about Deb and your letters. That still doesn’t mean I wasn’t… you know, shabby, in a way.’ He picked up his wide pencil and turned it around in his fingers, then made some inconsequential gestures towards the trees outlined on the canvas. ‘And a wuss, for sure,’ he added. Rose smiled tenderly.

‘My dear boy. Compared to what
I’ve
got to feel guilty about! I can hardly believe I’m here now and that… It still seems incredible that
any
of you are willing to speak to me, really.’

James gave his mother a look that was equal parts knowing and playful. ‘Well, as Eeyore said: don’t settle down to enjoy yourself yet, young Piglet,’ he teased. ‘There’s still time for you to cop a serve from somebody.’

‘Cop a serve? Is that the same as being taken to task? I’m rather steeling myself for that.’

‘Soon find out, won’t we? So, who’s the first cab off the rank?’

‘Robert. Tomorrow morning, eleven o’clock.’ Rose gave a theatrical shudder to demonstrate the extent of her nervousness.

‘Don’t worry, Rose, really,’ James said. ‘Whatever happens, you can handle it. I’m sure of that.’

‘I do hope so. I have to. Because there’s no running away this time.’

CHAPTER 33

Rose, who was a good driver and had an excellent sense of direction, wasn’t nervous about driving herself around what was, after all this time, a mostly unfamiliar city. Nevertheless, she somehow made a couple of wrong turns on the way to Robert’s house, arriving a little late, a little flustered.
Be calm
, she told herself.
Or at least, pretend to be. Poor Robert will be more nervous than I am.
She pulled up outside the house and noticed a blur of colour flash and disappear from the front window. Then the door was flung open and two girls with bright unruly orange hair sprang onto the porch, hesitated, and then hurtled down the steps and across the lawn towards her car. Plainly they were disobeying instructions. A woman with the same remarkable hair, a little less bright perhaps, appeared on the porch, calling them back. The two girls pretended not to hear her, milling instead on the nature strip and peering in excitedly at Rose. The woman looked at Rose, too, and smiled shyly and waved, and Rose waved back and got out of the car.

‘I’m Vesna, Robert’s wife,’ the woman said as they met halfway up the front path. She had one hand now on each of the girls’ shoulders.
What a shame about the glasses
, Rose thought. All three were dressed in gathered floral cotton skirts and white blouses with lace edging the collars.
Good heavens, homemade mother and daughter outfits! What century am I in?
then chastised herself for being such a fashion snob.
The lace is very good. The real thing.
‘Sorry about this rowdy pair! They’ve been so eager to meet you,’ said Vesna, and Rose was suddenly in love with that warm, genuine smile. ‘This is —’

‘I’m Bianca,’ said the taller girl, stepping forward with her hand out. ‘I’m nearly eleven.’

‘And I’m Alexa,’ said her sister, bounding from her mother’s gently restraining grip. ‘Hello, Grandma!’ They all shook hands, but clearly the girls were dying to kiss her so Rose bent forward a little and was immediately enveloped in a double hug. When she looked up from their embrace, Robert was walking down the steps towards them, smiling broadly. Rose was reminded powerfully of Alex, the Alex she had last seen almost four decades ago. The thinning brown hair with its trace of red, the long bony limbs. The utter, and completely unselfconscious, lack of style. And as the man came closer she saw traces of the boy, her older son, the good, anxious, disciplined child she’d known back then. And, yes, loved.

‘Hello, Mother,’ he said, and walked straight up and hugged her over the heads of Bianca and Alexa.

‘Hello, Robert. Hello, everyone.’ Rose had the odd but definite sense that this close-knit family group had deliberately expanded its structure to encompass her as though making room for a new dancer in a troupe, a new player on the team. She had not expected this.
How kind
, she thought.
He was always kind. Like Alex.

Once they were all seated in the living room, the girls stared at their grandmother avidly. No one knew what to say at first, so Rose brought out her presents. First, for Robert and Vesna, a pair of lovely little watercolours of the Somerset countryside, which they exclaimed over admiringly, and then, for each of the girls, a porcelain-headed doll which Rose had dressed herself. She had
been worried whether Robert’s daughters might not be too old for dolls, but they seemed truly delighted with them.
Can everything really be going so well
?

The resemblance between Vesna and her daughters was even more striking in real life than in the photographs Robert had sent. The extraordinary hair seemed almost to snap and crackle. They were not what you would call beauties, Rose thought, with their round faces and the very thick glasses that magnified their eyes. But the eyes themselves were lovely, brown, well-shaped and clear, and their complexions were creamy, with a sweet dusting of freckles. More, there was such good humour and curiosity in each open face, such readiness to find pleasure in whatever they encountered.
In fact
, Rose realised,
they are remarkably attractive, in the true sense.
Yes: one felt attracted to being with them, being part of their enjoyment. And Robert positively glowed in this setting.
What a good choice he made
, she thought, watching him confer briefly with Vesna on some point.
What a lucky man.

Bianca and Alexa left the room and quickly returned, each carrying a violin case and a recorder. ‘The girls are going to give us a little recital before we have lunch,’ said Robert proudly. ‘They’re both very talented musicians!’

Rose’s heart sank.
Oh no, not children’s performances!
and quickly admonished herself.
For heaven’s sake, these are your granddaughters!
But it was just as bad as she had feared. The girls were not particularly talented, though they clearly loved playing and their parents loved to hear them. Their repertoire was extensive and Rose felt herself going almost cross-eyed with boredom and an eerily familiar irritation.
This is why I ran away
, she realised, appalled.
It was from perfectly ordinary, nice things like this.
She looked across at Robert.
And you, poor thing, you most of all liked to show me what you could do, vibrating with anxiety that I should like it.

But the Robert she looked at now was not anxious. He sat next to his wife, smiling contentedly at their daughters sawing away on their
violins, and then the awful piping of the recorders. Rose looked curiously at his hands: the young Robert’s hands had been such a giveaway. But this Robert’s hands were perfectly relaxed, one resting on the arm of the couch, the other on his thigh.
So, this therapy he told me about, it must be working?
Who’d have thought it! Sensing his mother’s eyes on him, he turned to her and gave a little grin and tipped his head toward the girls as though to say,
Aren’t they terrific?
Rose smiled back, nodding her phony agreement with alacrity.

After the girls had finished their recital and received their applause, they put their instruments away carefully in their cases and Vesna said, ‘Now, you two come and help me in the kitchen and let Daddy talk to Grandma. With no interruptions!’

‘Okay, Mum,’ they said cheerfully, and both bounced over to Rose and gave her a kiss before following their mother out. At the last moment, Alexa turned in the doorway and ran back to her grandmother, leaning in close to whisper, ‘We think you’ve got pretty hair!’, and raced back again, giggling, ducking under her sister’s arm.

‘Oh! Thank you!’ called Rose, startled and pleased. Bianca closed the door with a flourish.

‘So, Mother!’ said Robert. ‘What do you think of my girls?’

‘Oh, they are lovely! Ever since I laid eyes on them, I’ve been thinking what a lucky man you are. Not only your daughters, Vesna too. Just beautiful. I really mean that, Robert.’

He nodded, several times, almost too pleased to speak.

‘I knew from the moment I met Vesna that she was the right girl for me!’ he burst out. ‘And amazingly, she felt just the same way. It was love at first sight, Mother, even though that’s rather a clichéd expression.’

‘But sometimes a cliché gets it just right, doesn’t it? How wonderful! I’m so glad for you. And, Robert? You can call me Rose, you know. I mean, after all these years… ’

Robert hesitated and then said firmly, ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to call you Mother. Precisely because of all these years, perhaps.’

‘Oh. Certainly, of course,’ agreed Rose, taken aback. She cast about for some new subject. ‘So, I see you don’t do the fingering any more,’ she said.
Oh, that was hardly tactful!

‘Yes, no,’ Robert agreed, and laughed suddenly. ‘Oh gosh, I remember it used to drive you up the wall!’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Rose said. ‘I was such an irritable mother.’

Robert shrugged. ‘Ah well. I’m sure it
was
annoying! It was a hard habit to break though. Well, it was more than that one habit. I told you about all that, didn’t I?’

‘You did. And I must say again that I was tremendously impressed with your approach. Your openness.’

‘It took a long time, Mother. I resisted medication, I resisted everything really. I wasn’t even completely honest about it with Vesna. I look back now and think,
What was I so ashamed of?
’

‘We all have things,’ said Rose tentatively, ‘that are difficult to admit to. Don’t you think?’

‘I do,’ he nodded firmly. ‘I do indeed. Almost impossible, I see now, without professional help. Now I regard my therapist as being like…’ He looked around the room, searching for the right comparison, ‘My dentist! Go for a check-up regularly or you’ll wind up with all sorts of problems! It’s as necessary as that, for me anyway.’

‘Oh, how times have changed! It would’ve been unthinkable for an Australian man to say that when I lived here. If therapists were even around then, which I doubt.’

‘It’s still difficult for many people even now. Believe me, I was one of them,’ he said seriously. ‘I was floundering; I had no idea.’

‘I’m sure you’re being too tough on yourself, Robert,’ Rose said. ‘I mean to say, you had a successful career already, a wonderful family.’

‘True, but at the same time…’ he paused, thinking, then went on with a rush. ‘Six months ago, that business with Deborah and the letters would’ve thrown me into a complete tailspin. I would’ve brooded on it night and day, in secret of course, and I wouldn’t have been able to even contemplate forgiving her. Let alone… you.’

Rose drew in her breath.
Face it squarely
, she told herself. ‘I think what I did to you all was far less forgiveable than what Deborah did,’ she said. Sitting side by side in the still room, they gazed at each other. Their seriousness, the intensity of their concentration, was almost palpable, but there was a calmness, a serenity even, emanating from Robert, and Rose realised,
I’m not nervous any more
. Sounds of Vesna and the girls preparing lunch could be heard distantly from the kitchen.

‘I wonder,’ Robert said gravely, ‘if you can understand how… incomprehensible it was? It tore me up for years, I can tell you. You have no idea how many nights I lay awake going over and over the same questions:
Why did Mum leave like that? Was it us? Was it me?’

Rose’s heart clenched. ‘I am so sorry, Robert. It’s pathetically too little, but I hope not entirely too late. I am
so
sorry.’

‘But, listen: ever since I married Vesna, and especially since the girls were born…Then
I
started to feel sorry for
you
. Everything you were missing out on. I mean, I knew you’d had that first part, our childhood, but it didn’t make you
happy
, did it? Not like it’s made me.’

‘No,’ Rose whispered sadly. ‘It didn’t.’

‘Vesna would say, when we talked about it,
She must have been so unhappy. More than we can imagine. Poor thing
.’

‘You certainly shouldn’t feel sorry for me.’

‘No. And I don’t, really, not now. And with my life now, with my family and my work and finally tackling all this anxiousness, this OCD business… I ask myself, who does it benefit if I brood and worry? What good does it do to be angry with Deborah? Or you, what purpose would it serve to be angry with you now? It would only make me wretched again. And why deny my lovely girls their grandmother?’

Rose listened intently. This man, this son of hers, was so much more complex than she’d expected. But – what
had
she been
expecting?
Children
, she realised with a shock.
I thought they’d still be my children, the ones I left. But they’re not, of course they’re not. They’re all grown up!