The Real Katie Lavender (30 page)

‘What made you change your mind?’

‘I decided this morning that I had to be honest with you; the situation was becoming way too weird for me. Originally I’d planned just to say we weren’t related and leave it at that, to see how things might progress between us, but then you went all quiet on me and I had to know why, and then I just blurted everything out.’

She sat up. ‘I’m sorry I did that. The thing is, I knew I was attracted to you but I felt it was wrong. And yeah, I know that some people don’t have a problem with first cousins getting it together, but it didn’t feel right to me. Too taboo. I kept wishing you weren’t my cousin. And that felt wrong too. I really had no idea how you felt about me. You hid it well.’

‘As did you. So why
did
you go so quiet?’

‘Because I was confused. I think I needed to recalibrate my brain. One minute you were my cousin and therefore off limits, and the next you were a guilt-free zone, a virtuously tempting skinny latte. Except my brain was struggling to keep up.’

‘I’ve been called many things, but never a skinny latte.’ He pulled her back down beside him, placing her head on his shoulder, his arm around her. It felt nice.

After a small silence, she said, ‘Do you know who your biological parents are? Have you ever tried to contact them?’

‘No on both counts.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I’ve never felt the need to do so. And I couldn’t do it to Mum. Even though she’d be her usual understanding self, I know it would hurt her deep down. No one – not even a birth mother – could have been a better mother to me.’

‘How old were you when you were adopted?’

‘Six days. And I was five years old when Mum and Dad told me I was adopted.’

‘And you’ve never been the slightest bit intrigued about your birth parents?’

‘Not sufficiently to make me want to meet them.’ He put his hand under her chin and tilted her face up to his. ‘But that’s not to say I don’t understand why you wanted to meet Stirling. We’re all different. You did what you needed to do. I just don’t need to figure out who I am; I know who I am. I always have. It was the same with Dad. He never had the urge to dig around in the past either. Not so far as I’m aware, anyway. But who knows what was really going on inside his head.’

Lloyd woke to the sound of doves cooing through the open window and the shower being used in the bathroom next to his bedroom. It wouldn’t be his mother in there; she had her own en suite. Which meant it had to be Katie. In a flash, he was hit with the image of her naked body just the other side of the wall. OK, he didn’t actually know what her body looked like undressed, but he could imagine. Oh yes, he could do that all right.

It was gone two when they had eventually got back home. The hall light had been left on for them, and creeping quietly upstairs, they had stood for an awkward moment on the landing outside the open door of his bedroom. To invite her in, or not to invite her in, that was the question. She had settled the matter for him by whispering good night and kissing him on the cheek. And with hindsight, it had been the right thing to do. What was the hurry? Well, other than the obvious. But he could wait. Contrary to his behaviour last night, he could be patient when required.

Walking home, he’d shared with Katie how, at first sight and totally unexpectedly, he’d been drawn to her, and how in the following days and weeks, when they’d been in contact by email, that attraction had grown. Looking back on the emails he’d written to her, he could have easily referred to his being adopted in one of them, but the strange thing was, he simply wasn’t very practised at telling people that Pen and Neil weren’t his birth parents. He could probably count the number of people he’d told on the fingers of one hand.

He opened his eyes; sunlight streamed into his old bedroom. Seldom did he sleep with the curtains drawn, a habit from childhood. He picked up his watch from the bedside table: seven fifteen. He should get up. His mother was probably already out in the garden, making sure it was as perfect as it had been yesterday. He was proud of her for her extraordinary strength, and especially for her capacity for forgiveness. How many widows in the same situation would cope as well as she was? He wasn’t sure he would be so forgiving if the woman he loved did the same to him.

Cecily had been right to encourage Pen to open the garden for the Bank Holiday weekend – it had given her something positive and enjoyable to focus on – but Lloyd was worried what would happen when it was all over. In the early years, when Mum had opened the garden for the hospice, she had gone through a period of let-down afterwards. To avoid this happening again, Dad came up with the bright idea of taking her on holiday after each event. Last year he’d taken her to the Languedoc to visit the gardens in the region. They’d gone on a short cruise on the Canal du Midi and sampled the wines of the area. Lloyd could vividly recall how happy they’d seemed when he’d collected them from the airport. But Dad couldn’t have been happy, could he? He must have been faking it.

If Lloyd thought too much about the desperate state his father had been reduced to, a knot of guilt tightened in his stomach. Why hadn’t he noticed that he was in such a mess? Had he been so absorbed with getting his business off the ground that he had missed the signs? Try as he might, he couldn’t think of anything that could be classed as a sign. Dad’s medical records showed no evidence that he’d visited the doctor for any stress or depression-related problems; only that he had complained of an apparent inability to sleep as he used to – something that Lloyd and Pen had had no knowledge of. A prescription for sleeping pills had been made out for him the week before his death; combined with what had been found on his computer – he had actually Googled how best to go about killing himself – his intent had been chillingly clear. Just as chilling was the matter-of-fact site he had visited, which had gone into considerable detail about consuming just the right amount of alcohol and pills, get it wrong and you’d vomit the pills back up and survive. Never had Lloyd been more shocked at what you could research online.

In one of her emails to him, Katie had said that as sad and shocking as it had been to lose her parents, she had at least been able to make sense of their deaths, whereas with suicide it had to be one of the hardest things to understand. She was right. Lloyd could say the words – his father had killed himself because he realized he was about to be outed for fraud and couldn’t face the consequences – but it didn’t help one little bit, because whilst it explained everything, it explained nothing.

He heard the shower being switched off next door. He pushed the duvet back decisively: time to get a move on. He went and stood at the window. Down in the garden, his eyes following a trail of footprints on the dew-sodden grass, he saw his mother on her knees, gathering rose petals that had dropped on the lawn overnight. He wondered how she would feel once this weekend was over. What would she have then to keep her busy and distract her from thinking of Dad?

Perhaps he should offer to take her away like Dad used to. But how would he spare the time? He was already behind with a commission, and though the customer wasn’t hounding him for the table and chair set that had to be shipped to Dubai, it bothered him that he wasn’t on top of things.

It bothered him more, though, that he could be so selfish. After everything Mum had done for him, the least he could do was find the time to help her through the coming months.

Stirling was doing his best to keep the peace, but Gina didn’t seem to want peace; she seemed much more inclined to pick a fight, and over the most insignificant of things – he’d prepared a grapefruit for her when she’d wanted watermelon . . . he’d made her coffee when she’d wanted tea . . . he was wearing a shirt she’d never liked . . . he’d switched the radio on too loudly. He couldn’t do anything right.

He knew very well that these trivial irritations didn’t form the real basis of her antagonism; they were merely symptoms of what was actually upsetting her, and so, wisely, he was biting his tongue and waiting for the storm to pass.

With breakfast cleared away, he went upstairs to find Gina and tell her that he was off to help at The Meadows. He also wanted to check that she didn’t have any plans for tonight. If not, he thought he’d take the
Lady Cecily
out. He hadn’t used the boat in nearly three months – the last time had been with Neil, when they’d gone on one of their evening jaunts. The thought had occurred to him that it would be nice to take Katie for an evening cruise. He could put a small picnic together and have some proper time alone with her. Not that he’d tell Gina that.

He had hoped to be able to spend some time with Katie yesterday, but it hadn’t been possible. From start to finish the day had been hectic. He had been assigned the job of standing at the gate taking the entrance money – the job Neil had always done – and towards the end of the afternoon, he’d asked Posh Pam to take his place so he could chat with Katie for a while.

Rosco and Scarlet’s appearance had taken the wind out of his sails, though. Whilst he’d been eager for them to meet Katie, he’d also dreaded it. He understood why they might view her as a threat, but he’d known that the only way for them to accept the situation and come to terms with it was to meet her. He’d wanted to believe that once they had, they’d put things into perspective and would want to get to know her better. For all Rosco’s light-hearted manner yesterday, Stirling suspected the brief exchange with Katie hadn’t gone too well. Why else would he and Scarlet have slipped away without saying goodbye? He’d wanted to ring them both later in the evening but hadn’t had the nerve.

He found Gina upstairs in their bedroom; she was standing at the window talking on the telephone. It sounded like she was bringing to an end a heated conversation with Scarlet. He made his presence known just as she clicked the phone off. She turned on her heel, her face tight. Immediately the air was tense between them.

‘That was Scarlet,’ she said, indicating the phone in her hand.

‘I gathered so.’

‘She was telling me how she and Rosco gave in to your bullying and finally agreed to meet that bastard child of yours yesterday afternoon.’

He strained not to rise to the bait. ‘I didn’t insist. I asked them to meet Katie.’

‘Liar! You bullied them into doing it!’

‘I did no such thing. I would never do that. All I did was ask if they would take the time to meet their half-sister while she was staying with Pen.’

‘Do you have any idea of the pressure you’re putting your children under? Do you?’

‘We’re all under pressure. This is not an easy situation. But overreacting will only make things worse.’

She breathed in deeply, pursed her lips. ‘I don’t want Rosco and Scarlet having to go through another afternoon like yesterday. Do you have any idea how upset Scarlet is? Do you even care that she was so distraught last night that she couldn’t sleep? Have you given a moment’s thought to what all this stress could be doing to her baby, to your grandchild? Do you even care?’

‘I care enormously,’ he said gravely. ‘And I resent that you could accuse me otherwise.’

‘Then prove to me that you care. I don’t want you to see that girl again. Nor do I ever want to hear her name mentioned again in my presence. Do you understand?’

‘I can’t turn my back on Katie. What kind of a man would that make me?’

‘You should have asked yourself the same question thirty years ago when you were screwing the girl’s mother – what kind of man were you to do that?’

There was a cold, implacable defiance to Gina that he’d never seen before. In contrast, he could feel himself vibrating with a hot rage. Very carefully he said, ‘I’ve told you I’m sorry, Gina.’

‘Sorry isn’t enough.’

He sucked in a ragged breath. ‘Why is it that Pen can forgive Neil for all that he did, but you can’t forgive me something I did thirty years ago? If you can’t do that, then there’s really no point in us staying together.’

‘I’ll forgive you if you do as I ask. You have to promise you’ll never see that girl again.’

‘I can’t do that.’

Her voice was steely. ‘I’m asking you to choose your family or a girl you barely know. It can’t be that difficult, surely?’

The rage was squeezing his chest so hard he could barely breathe. ‘Don’t do this, Gina.’

She gave him a sour look. ‘I just did.’ Very calmly, she replaced the phone in its cradle on his side of the bed and walked out of the room.

Stirling tore up the drive. He shot out on to the road and put his foot down. How the hell could Gina expect him to make such a choice? It was inhuman of her. He was appalled she could be so cold-blooded.

He braked hard at the entrance to The Meadows, but instead of turning in, he remained on the road and stared at the open-day poster on the gate. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t stand at that gate for the day putting on a cheerful and welcoming smile. The last thing he wanted to do was let Pen down, but he just couldn’t face it. Politeness would be beyond him.

He put his foot on the accelerator and drove on, fast, the hedgerows thick and high, flashing by in a blur of green. He knew it was wrong to drive when he was so pumped up, but he didn’t care. The sensible thing to do would be to turn around and go home, to take his boat out on the river, to let the water soothe and calm him, clear his head. But he didn’t want to be calmed or soothed. He wanted speed. He wanted ferocity. And aggression. He wanted six litres of snarling engine to meet his fury head-on and take him away from here. A one-way ticket to oblivion. That was what he needed.

He had never been a big drinker, never smoked or taken drugs. He’d always stayed the course of sense and reason, of doing the right thing. The only time he’d done anything remotely crazy and spontaneous was when he’d fallen for Fay. Since then, he’d anchored himself firmly in clear-headed judgement, of being reliable and prudent, of always putting his family first. Over the years, he’d carefully erected extra-high safety rails around himself, and the creation of the ultra-sensible and careful man he strived to be was complete when his father died and he unintentionally, but inevitably, became head of the family. Now he wanted to do anything but the right thing. He wanted to break out and be reckless. To throw off the constraints of his life. To be wildly out of control. And to hell with the consequences!