The Last Summer (56 page)

‘I’m here . . . I’m here now.’

So many years had passed, but I needed to know. And not to absolve myself: for there could be no absolution. All I needed to know was that my daughter was alive and well, and happy; yes, happy.

My heart wobbled as he stood in front of me. And I watched him as he pulled the pages from a large brown envelope. He knew what was coming, of course; he’d already read every word in that envelope, but he had to tell me, had to deliver the news. He dismissed the flimsy covering note, and then looked at me with a strange serious face. And I for some reason laughed. ‘Yes . . .’ I said, extending my hand, ‘Come along then.’

He said nothing, handed me the sheet of paper:
a certified copy of an entry of death
.

‘Oh, well, this isn’t right,’ I said. ‘No, no, this isn’t right . . .’

I looked at the name:
Elizabeth Rachel Healey . . . Date of death, December the twenty-first, 1919 . . . Cause of death, Influenza . . .

‘No, this is wrong . . . this is definitely wrong. That’s not her. That’s not her name,’ I said. ‘They’ve obviously made a mistake.’

I didn’t want to look at any more. I put down the sheet of paper and walked about the room. It was a mistake, I said again.
Bloody useless people
. I lit a cigarette, looked out of the window. ‘It’s not her,’ I said. ‘It’s not her, Tom. They’ve made a mistake . . . it’s the wrong person. That’s not her . . . it’s not her.’

There was no mistake. The people named Healey had adopted our daughter. They’d given her a new name, a life and an identity we could never give her. And for almost eighteen months she’d lived with them, as their child. And then, one night before
Christmas, not long after her second birthday, and in the middle of the Spanish flu epidemic, Emily had died.

She had never celebrated a third, fifth, sixth, or even a tenth birthday; and there would never be any meeting between us. I would never know what she had become, because she had not
become
. I would never hear her voice or know what she looked like, because she had never grown up. My remembrance of her would only ever be as a three-week-old baby.

Grief can be held off for a lifetime, and mine, for the baby I’d given away, took over twelve years to arrive. When it came, it came with the same force of any held-back torrent. It flooded my senses, drowned my perspective. And, though submerged, I occasionally caught my breath long enough to see the debris and driftwood of my life float past me, all pinned with one word:
waste
; the waste of time; the unnecessary waste of love. And the only thing I could hold on to was him, Tom.

Later, he called the number Oliver Goddard had given him, and asked for more information, and someone eventually called him back. Because the child was dead, they said, they were prepared to give a little more information than was usual. They told him that Albert Healey had been a greengrocer, and the family – his wife, and our daughter, Emily – had lived above the shop, in Battersea, London.

And he found her eventually too: in a cemetery at Wandsworth. We drove there together, late one afternoon. The day after he told me of his discovery.

That day, at the cemetery, he seemed to know exactly where to go. And he was remarkably calm, surprisingly in control. He held on to my hand tightly as he led me through row upon row of tombstones, down a pathway to a dank corner, and the name we now knew, chiselled into a lopsided stone: Elizabeth Rachel Healey, 1917–1919.

Emily Cuthbert.

We stood there together in silence, staring at that name. Then I stepped forward and placed the arrangement of white roses I’d had a Sloane Street florist prepare next to the stone. It looked extravagant, expensive, and incongruous: too big for a baby, too pathetic for the circumstances. She’d lain there for over a decade, serenaded only by the rumble of London traffic. Had anyone visited her? I wondered. Had anyone mourned her? Did others come to that place bestowed with memories I would never have? There were no signs of anyone having been, certainly not recently. No fresh or dying flowers; no plants in pots; nothing. And here we were, her parents, standing side by side under an umbrella as a smoky drizzle descended: too late to hold her, too late to know her, too late to explain.

He didn’t weep, didn’t shed a tear. And even then, through my own tears, I noticed this. How strong and in control he was. But he had been through a war, seen so much, and he was a businessman, I thought. It wasn’t until later, much later, that I learned Tom had been on his own to visit Emily’s grave before he ever took me.

As I stood in the rain that day, all I could think of was the tiny baby I’d held and nursed; the baby I’d given away: my baby. And I didn’t want to leave. Even when the rain became heavier and he pulled on my arm, I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to leave her again, you see.

Eventually, he led me back through the tombstones, up the wet path towards the gate, and I could feel my chest tightening: that wrench, still there. He helped me into our waiting car, carefully tucking in my coat, closing the door, and then he moved to the other side of the vehicle and climbed in himself. And as we pulled away he turned to me, took hold of my hand and said something. Numb, and immersed in my grief, I couldn’t hear his words. But as we headed out through the sprawling southern suburbs I realised what he’d said:
I’m taking you home now.

I turned to him. ‘Home?’

‘Yes, home . . . we’re going home, Clarissa.’

And as we passed through the old white gate I looked up out of the car window. A pale grey-blue sky stretched out above us, stretched further and illuminated by elongated wavy pink clouds: evensong clouds. And in a split second of déjà vu I finally grasped something: that there is no such thing as the passing of time, only the arc of seasons: a circle and not a line.

Moments can and do come back to us.

London, May the fifth 1930

Dearest Ted,

I hope this letter finds you well and that Devonshire is basking in the same blissful sunshine we have been fortunate enough to enjoy here in London these past few weeks. There really is no better time of year, is there? The light, which for some reason I always forget, is altogether different and truly quite heavenly, and the air fresh, & fragrant with new blossom.

I must apologise to you for the tardiness of this letter, but we have had a busy & eventful time of late. C and T were married three weeks ago, on April the fourteenth (six days after her divorce was made final) at the Register Office here in Kensington. It was a very simple, quiet affair, with Venetia Cooper and a business associate of T’s – a Mr Goddard – acting as ‘witnesses’, and afterwards, a small luncheon party – including V & the aforementioned Mr G, Jimmy C (V’s son), H and myself – at a favourite restaurant of C & T’s on the Fulham Road, all terribly informal – and MODERN.

Unfortunately I was forced to miss the nuptials in order to meet H from the boat train. T had arranged his passage (as a surprise for C)
and I had anticipated him being home the day before, but the crossing was delayed due to storms in the mid-Atlantic. As I’m sure you can imagine, it was rather a shock to dear C when I walked in to the restaurant with H on my arm, but the perfect surprise for her on her wedding day. All of us, including me, shed a tear when she rushed into his arms. It was such a happy day, one of the happiest of my life, and I think you would have been very proud.

They are expecting a baby, due early October I think, and so, though T had had all sorts of wonderful ideas & exotic sounding locations planned for their honeymoon, the doctor quite rightly advised against any foreign travel.

She is so happy, Teddy, radiantly happy, and they’re quite inseparable, like a couple of children, & utterly content to spend all of their time at Deyning – with T now running & managing the farm, & C the house and gardens. Edna is with them, back as housekeeper and cook, but I have no idea how they manage without servants – & just the one gardener! However, C assures me that this is how they want it.

And I too am to move back there, into the place that was once yours, & ours, at the end of the summer. Oh I can see you smiling now, and yes, it will be queer to be back there – living in THAT cottage. Do you remember, all those years ago, when that was our dream? They are knocking the two cottages (yrs & what was, in yr time, Mrs C’s) into one, so it will be plenty big enough for me now.

I enclose a photograph for you – taken on the day, on the steps of the Register Office. She does look beautiful, and so happy – doesn’t she? I know it will make your heart sing to see that face once more. And they make such a handsome couple, don’t they? I have no doubt they’ll produce rather dashing offspring, and I’m simply longing to be ‘Grandma’.

Do write to me soon and send me your news. In the meantime, & as always, I remain . . .

Yours,

Dina

Thanks to my supportive early readers: Venetia Welby, Sandie Dent and Kim Curran. Thanks to Ali Gunn, for her passion and faith in me; and to Jo Lloyd, for her editorial input and advice. Thanks to everyone at Headline: to Kate Byrne, who read the manuscript so many times and whose comments were invaluable to me; to my copyeditor, Jane Heller; to Helena Towers, and to Frankie Gray. Special thanks to my editor, Imogen Taylor. Extra special thanks to Max and Arabella, and to my mother – for never doubting.