Precious Time (40 page)

She woke violently from the dream, her heart racing. That was twice now she had dreamed of Todd.

Didn’t you get to know TMA during your stint in Wilmington?

How innocently Guy had typed those words, never once thinking they would have such an effect on her. How hard it had been to email him back and say casually, ‘Oh, I met him once or twice. And yes, you’d better keep him safe from the women on the packing line!’

It was stupid of her, really, but she should have guessed that Todd would be assigned to visit the plant and oversee the buy-out. It was part of his job. She wondered if he was anxious about bumping into her.

Probably not.

She was measuring the depth of his response by her own, which couldn’t be the same. He didn’t know that their brief love-affair had created Ned.

Since she had returned from Wilmington, she had observed his progress within the organisation from company reports and morale boosting in-house magazines. She had also tuned in discreetly to any snippets of transatlantic gossip that buzzed around the plant. But last year she had been brought up short when she had unexpectedly come across him in the pages of the Financial Times. It had been an article about Phoenix’s latest rise in profits after the US drug regulator had given the green light to its new anti-depressant drug, but all she had been interested in was the photograph that showed the company finance director. It was clearly an up-to-date picture because he was wearing glasses, which he hadn’t needed when she had known him.

Two thoughts had occurred to her as she looked at the photograph: (a) the frameless glasses suited Todd, and (b) she would need to check Ned’s vision as he grew older.

She straightened the duvet and turned on to her side, knowing that sleep would elude her for a while yet. She wished there was someone in whom she could confide. For more than four years she had kept her own counsel, and convinced herself that she would never have to deal with Todd again. She supposed it said a lot about her controlling nature that she had believed she could wrap things up so tidily.

But now, because she knew Todd would soon be arriving in

England, a voice was asking if she had done the right thing in keeping the truth about Ned from him.

Her intentions had been good, though: she hadn’t wanted to jeopardise the relationship he needed to rebuild with his wife and daughters. But would it have been fairer to give him the facts and let him decide what to do? And would he be angry, if he were to find out about Ned, that he had been denied the right to know his son?

That was what worried her most.

Even so, part of her was convinced that it would be better to go on keeping Todd in the dark - what the eye didn’t see, the heart couldn’t miss. But what if he discovered that Clara Costello had jacked in her job to spend more time with her son? She could imagine the conversation all too well. ‘She has a son? When did she marry?’ An awkward pause. ‘Oh, not married. How old is the child?’

When he had done the sums, would he track down those to whom she had been closest at work, and through them seek her out?

And that was where the need to talk to somebody came in. Should she confess to her friends so that Guy and David could be on their guard for any unfortunate slip of the tongue, and prime them to lie about Ned’s age?

She knew that to expose them to such a secret wasn’t fair.

No. Her only hope was to carry on as before and pray that Todd wouldn’t ask after her. He hadn’t up till now, had he?

But the next morning Clara was tempted to phone Louise. She thought she would go mad if she didn’t confide in someone. The need to be told that she had done the right thing, that no blame could be apportioned to her, was so great she could think of nothing else.

Ironically, it was Ned who provided her with the means to stand firm. With him around, there was no opportunity for her to make such a telephone call. After breakfast, and following a lengthy, fun filled washing-up session, they left the campsite in Pateley Bridge which had been home for the last three days while they had toured Ripon, Harrogate and Skipton - and set off for Haworth. This was primarily Clara’s choice - she had always wanted to see where the Bronte sisters had lived - but there were plenty of things to interest Ned too. A trip on a steam train run by the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, and a visit to Eureka!, the Museum for Children in Halifax. They might even drive over to Leeds to see the Armoury.

Education as well as entertainment was the order of their trip.

She had been worried that Ned would tire of being a perpetual tourist, but they had yet to encounter boredom. The trick, it seemed, was to provide a wide-ranging variety of places to visit, as well as allow themselves occasional days of doing nothing so they could relax and catch their breath. They did this when they were fortunate enough to find themselves on campsites with plenty of facilities - a swimming-pool (preferably indoor), a play area, a woodland trail, a crazy-golf course. One place they had stopped at in Northumberland, not far from Bamburgh Castle and Holy Island, had had its

own ten-pin bowling alley and they had spent a hilarious afternoon trying not to drop cannon balls, as Ned called them, on their toes.

They arrived at the Haworth campsite shortly after twelve. They checked in and hooked up to the electricity supply. As they had already stocked up on groceries, fresh milk, a loaf of wholemeal bread, some Edam for Ned, Stilton for her, and a bag of treats chocolate fingers, crisps and a bar of Fruit and Nut - they decided to have lunch. It was warm enough to sit outside, and while they ate Ned kept his eye on a family a few pitches away. Two small girls were laughing at their father as he danced around like a gorilla with a rubber mallet in his hands; their mother looked on, amused, as she brushed grass off a large plastic groundsheet.

Clara watched Ned closely. What was going through his mind as he took in this ubiquitous family unit? Did he ever feel he was missing out in some way?

Inevitably Ned had enquired early on in his young life where his father was: the children he mixed with at nursery school seemed to have one, if not two, in their lives - there were plenty of step-fathers on the scene. Clara had been dreading this question, but had believed she would wing it when it surfaced. Ever since Ned had started to talk, Clara’s mother had been on at her to devise a reasonable explanation, saying that it wouldn’t be fair to Ned to be anything but honest. She had also been concerned that Ned might ask her the crucial question, and had needed to know what she should say.

It had crossed Clara’s mind, and for no more than a nanosecond, to say that his father was dead, but the consequences of such a lie were too awful to contemplate. As were those of saying she didn’t know who his father was. In the end she had told him the truth, or as near to it as she could. She had explained that sometimes adults had to make difficult decisions, and the hardest one she had had to make was to bring him up on her own because his father lived a long way away and wasn’t able to be a real father to him. She had waited for him to probe deeper, but the questions didn’t come. He seemed satisfied with what he had, and once more, she put his happiness down to the fact that he was blessed with wonderful grandparents and other people who truly cared for him. She didn’t fool herself that she could get away so lightly for much longer, though. The older he became, the more enquiring he would grow, and in turn she would have to be more honest with him. As his mother, that was her responsibility.

As her son, it was his right.

Haworth was beautiful. Surrounded by deserted unspoilt moors, it was easy to conjure up the brooding sense of melancholy conveyed in Emily Bronte’s classic novel. Windswept moors, abandoned hope, neglect and decay, it was all here. It was a place of pilgrimage for anyone whose heart had ever been broken. The long walk up to Top Withens, reputedly the ruins of the house that had inspired Emily’s Wuthering Heights, almost defeated Ned, and Clara had to carry him for a short while, but afterwards they rewarded themselves with tea in a pretty cafe in the steep main street of Haworth. Fortified by strong tea, with lots of milk in it for Ned, and floury scones, homemade raspberry jam and cream as thick as butter, they joined a

guided tour of the parsonage where the Bronte family had lived.

Then they dawdled through the leafy graveyard, where they played an impromptu game of hide-and-seek. Ned was easy to find: he always had a foot or an elbow sticking out from the lichen-coated headstone he was giggling behind. They had a leisurely snoop through the gift shops - it was still early in the season and the vast crowds of sightseers were yet to invade - and found some beautiful handcrafted wooden toys. Ned picked out a funny little acrobat who swung his brightly painted body when the sides of the toy were squeezed, and they added to their collection of postcards, as they did in every place they visited. Clara also bought herself a copy of Wuthering Heights. It was years since she had read the book, and apart from being a perfect memento of the day, it would be a nostalgic treat.

Ned went to bed early that night, worn out, and while he slept, Clara read. When she had finished the first chapter, she laid it aside and fished out the tapestry kit she had bought in Glasgow. She had never tried tapestry before, condemning it as a time-wasting occupation for those with not enough to do, but she found the repetitive motion of pushing the needle in and out of the canvas oddly relaxing. It was also addictive: the steady process of producing neat rows of orderly stitches had its own appeal for her. She studied what she had done so far, trying to make up her mind which piece of the intricate pattern to do next, and settled for the bottom right-hand corner, where a dusty-skinned Victoria plum had rolled away from the bowl of fruit that made up the majority of the design. She selected a length of wool, threaded it, and thought, as she made the first stitch, how like the plum she was: she, too, had rolled away from what had been the mainstay of her life - her career.

The decision had not been taken lightly, but it made her smile to think how dramatically different her life had become. Here she was, in a second-hand campervan, surrounded by stunningly picturesque scenery, spending her evening sewing while her son slept. She had never felt so full of energy: the closeness she now had with Ned was truly uplifting. But who was this rejuvenated Clara Costello, who had been so happy to let go of her old life? And where did she see herself in the months ahead when it was time for Ned to embark upon his sixteen-year sentence of scholastic hard labour? Did she really want to slip back into the rat-race she had left behind and become again the frazzled woman she had allowed herself to turn into? Was there something she would rather do?

She rethreaded her needle. What did she want to do?

She felt confident that she could resume her career more or less where she had left it, maybe not with Phoenix, but there were plenty of other pharmaceutical companies. The all-important question, though, was: did she want to pick up where she had left off? Perhaps it was time to change direction and do something new.

Not so long ago she would have been annoyed and frustrated that she couldn’t find an answer to this but now she was content to take each day as it came; it was enough to be happy with what she had right now. And because she had never been a spendthrift she had sufficient funds to tide them over for some time yet. Come the New Year she would have to get a job and start bringing in a decent salary again, but that was months away. It wasn’t even June, and they had the whole of the summer stretching gloriously ahead of them. Three wonderful months of come-what-may. How lucky she was.

It was when she was lying in bed, having just turned out the light, that her thoughts slipped back to where they had been first thing that morning.

Todd.

All at once her anxiety about him returned. It was a warm night and, with several windows open, she tossed and turned for nearly an hour listening to noises from their fellow campers - a dog barking, a car door slamming, a kettle whistling. Before long, the surge of worry turned into a thumping headache and, knowing she would never get a decent night’s sleep if she didn’t take something, she slipped out of bed and opened the locker above the cooker. It was too high for Ned to reach and she kept in it the first-aid kit and the bottle of paracetamol. It wasn’t easy to find in the semi-darkness, not with all the important documents she had stored in there: the vehicle insurance details, her cheque book and building-society pass book and a file of other essential records. She continued to rummage for the paracetamol. She pushed aside a bulging A4 envelope and her mobile phone, then found something large and bulky that she didn’t recognise. Then, with a flash of guilt, she realised what it was: the tied-up bundle of Val Liberty’s diaries.

She let out a smothered moan of self-reproach - how many times had she made a mental note not to forget to put them back? - and lifted the notebooks down from the locker. Despite herself, she couldn’t resist the pull of Val’s story-telling. She found the paracetamol, slipped back into bed, switched on the overhead light and

flicked through Val’s last diary. Scanning the pages for something of interest, her eyes were drawn to the final entry.

The writing was a lot less sure than it had been on previous pages.

She must have known she was dying when she wrote this.

To whoever is reading this (and it will probably be Jonah, he is the only one who would be interested), all I ask is that you give my diaries to Gabriel when I am dead and ask him to read them.

I know he won’t sort through my things (just as he didn’t with Anastasia), but I do so badly want him to know that in my own way I did love him. There was so much unsaid in our marriage so much that needed saying - that this is perhaps the only way I will be able to communicate my feelings to a man who has been too hard on his family, but mostly too hard on himself. He wasn’t able to offer his children the love and affection they needed, for the simple fact one can’t give what one hasn’t got. A broken heart is exactly that - a broken vessel with the love drained out of it.