The Real Katie Lavender (47 page)

Until now, Rosco hadn’t realized just how much he wanted that to be true. He wanted his parents to be happy. He wanted to see them the way they used to be around each other, relaxed and natural. Laura might think his parents were great and didn’t have a care in the world, but to his eye they were a shadow of their real selves. He could see the strain on both their faces. It stood to reason, though: what they’d been through couldn’t be rectified overnight, it would take time. But today was a step in the right direction. He was sure of it.

Stirling was watching his family as if through the lens of a camera. Or perhaps more accurately through a telescope but the wrong way round. He felt horribly distanced from everyone.

He was so disappointed in himself. He’d woken up this morning determined to enjoy himself today. Possibly that had been his mistake. But for everyone’s sake, he was throwing what little energy he had into the role of genial host. Despite his efforts, he was convinced it wasn’t working, that people could see through the pretence. Surely they knew he was hitting a false note with almost everything he said?

The only place where he felt he could lower his guard and be himself was in the kitchen. He kept making up excuses for being there – taking out the dirty crockery, fetching more wine and soft drinks, or simply checking on his granddaughter.

He was doing that now. Scarlet had placed the car seat containing Louisa-May safely in the middle of the central island unit directly opposite the Aga. She was sound asleep and looked as snug as a bug. Her tiny head was covered with a pink cotton hat that was tied loosely under her chin, and her skin was smooth and creamy-pale and thankfully devoid of all trace of the jaundice she’d had. Her eyelashes were incredible. So astonishingly long. As were her fingers. The rest of her tiny body was swaddled in clothes and a white fleece blanket. Unable to resist the opportunity, and while supposedly stacking the dishwasher with dirty plates, he had taken heaven only knew how many photos of her. He planned to get one of those albums put together online and present it to Scarlet and Charlie when their daughter was a month old – on the date she had been officially due to arrive. One day, when she was older, Stirling would sit down with his granddaughter and go through the album with her. He would tell her how beautiful she had been and how she was the absolute apple of everyone’s eye. Little girls loved being told things like that. He’d done the same thing with Scarlet when she’d been small. ‘Again!’ she would say, her hands eagerly flicking through the pages back to the start of the photo album. ‘Tell me again how pretty I was in this picture. Tell me again how much you loved me.’

Filled with a sudden wave of sadness, he bent down closer to Louisa-May. ‘Tell me that I’ve done the right thing,’ he whispered, breathing in the sweet milky smell of her. ‘Tell me that Katie won’t hate me from now on.’

‘Hello, Dad. You’re not trying to wake her, are you?’

Stirling started. He straightened up and smiled at Scarlet. She looked radiant; motherhood clearly suited her. ‘No,’ he said, ‘just telling her that she has the most beautiful mother in the world.’

Smiling, Scarlet came and joined him. He put his arm around her. ‘She’s quite perfect, isn’t she?’ he said.

‘I still can’t believe she’s here. Or that she’s mine. Or more amazingly, that anyone thinks I’m to be trusted with her.’

‘From what I’ve seen, you’re doing just fine. I’m so proud of you.’

‘Thanks, Dad. You know, and this might sound a bit wacky, but I feel as though I’ve found what I’ve always been searching for. I’ve never known what I really wanted to do with my life, and now I do. I want to be the best mother I can. I know some people will think that it’s a cop-out, that I’m using motherhood as a reason not to pursue a proper career, but this
is
a career, isn’t it? Mum was always happy doing it, so why shouldn’t I be?’

‘I don’t think that sounds at all wacky. I think it’s wonderful. But how are you feeling? You seem to have bounced back so fast. You’re not overdoing it, are you?’

‘I get tired pretty quickly, and I’m a bit sore, but on the whole I’m OK. And it’s just so lovely to be out of hospital and at home with Charlie.’ She laughed. ‘He’s completely dotty about his daughter. He talks to her all the time, calls her his little Lulu-May. Do you know what he said to me this morning?’

‘Go on, tell me.’

‘He said that he’s glad I’m normal again. According to him, I turned into the Pregnant Mother From Hell, and was driving everyone crazy. Did I?’

Stirling smiled affectionately at her. ‘You were a little zealous maybe, but with good reason.’

She smiled too and nestled in closer to him, tucking herself in under his shoulder, something she had always done, but hadn’t in ages. ‘I’ve missed you, Dad,’ she said, her voice suddenly sad. ‘Ever since Uncle Neil . . . and . . . and Katie turned up, you haven’t been my dad. You’ve been someone else.’

He swallowed. ‘I don’t think any of us have quite been ourselves since Uncle Neil’s death.’

She turned her face to gaze up to his and gave him a long, searching look. ‘Mum told me what you did yesterday. Was it very awful?’

He suddenly couldn’t speak. He swallowed again and watched his sleeping granddaughter stretch out the delicate fingers of one of her hands, and then do the same with the other. They’d all seen her do this many times over and it had already become the family joke that she was destined to grow up to be a virtuoso pianist. Funny how no parent ever wanted their child to be an average pianist or an average footballer. Always the expectation was for it to be the absolute best, to reach the pinnacle of high achievement. Was that wrong of parents? Probably it was. It was too easy to categorize children and not see beyond the label. He and Gina had done it themselves with Rosco and Scarlet – Rosco had been labelled the brains of the family ever since he could recite his times tables at the age of five, and Scarlet, well, Scarlet with her fondness for melodrama had been the drama queen. Had they done their children a disservice? Could they have been different people had they not been labelled and treated as such?

‘It’s all right, Dad,’ Scarlet said. ‘If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to.’ She looked at her sleeping child and lightly touched Louisa-May’s delicate cheek. ‘It’s just that . . . well, having a baby of my own has . . . it’s made me think differently about all sorts of things, and I really want you to know that I can appreciate now how hard it must have been for you to do what you did yesterday. I don’t think I would be strong enough to do it. But don’t tell Mum I said that. She’d have a fit.’

His throat constricted, and knowing that his emotions were too raw and too near the surface to carry on with this conversation, he kissed the top of Scarlet’s head and said, ‘Come on, we’d better get back to the others before we’re missed.’

‘You go ahead; I need the loo.’

With a heavy heart he reluctantly left the warmth and safety of the kitchen and returned to the dining room, where once again he would have to face his son.

How was he going to repair the damage he’d done to his relationship with Rosco? Could things ever be the same again between them?

The drive back to Henley might have had the effect of taking the heat out of another person’s anger, but Lloyd was not that other person, and by the time he entered the village of Sandiford, he was fully pumped up and ready to lay waste to the individual responsible for putting him in this mood.

He swung through the gates of Willow Bank and tore up the long drive. He saw and recognized the collection of cars parked in front of the garage block and pulled in behind the Benton-Norrises’ Land Rover. So what if Stirling and Gina had company? So much the better! Let them know what Stirling had done. Let them know what a miserable coward he was.

The rain coming down, he rang the doorbell long and hard. Not once. Not twice. But three times.

He could hear voices from the other side of the door. Lighthearted voices debating who the devil it could be and a single voice saying that he would go and see. The voice belonged to Rosco.

The door opened, and Rosco looked at Lloyd with an expression of puzzled bemusement. ‘What’s with all the hammering on the bell?’ he asked. ‘It’s not like we didn’t hear you the first time.’

Lloyd had no intention of humouring his cousin with an answer. Instead he pushed him aside and marched through to the hallway. He stood in the middle of the wide-open space and shouted, ‘Uncle Stirling, I want a word with you.’

‘Hang on! Just what the hell do you think you’re up to?’ Rosco demanded. ‘What gives you the right to burst in—’

Lloyd turned on him, a hand raised, his forefinger in Rosco’s face. ‘Save the self-important act for someone who gives a shit. I’m not interested. Now close the door and get your father’s sorry arse here, right now. I’m not leaving until I’ve—’

‘Lloyd, whatever is the matter?’

Lloyd spun round. It was Stirling.

‘As if you don’t know!’ he shouted. ‘I’m here about Katie. Your
daughter
. The daughter you’re prepared to turn your back on and pretend doesn’t exist. The daughter who is a better person than you will ever be. The daughter who has more morality and backbone than you’ll ever have.’

The colour drained from Stirling’s face. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I can see you’re upset, Lloyd. Now why don’t we go into my study and discuss this?’

‘Dad, let me throw him out.’

Stirling shook his head. ‘No, Rosco. Lloyd’s perfectly entitled to an explanation.’

‘It’s not an explanation I want,’ Lloyd said, his voice still raised. ‘There’s nothing you could say that could make me think you did the right thing.’

‘What
do
you want, then?’

‘Everything all right here?’

It was Charlie, along with his father and Scarlet, her baby draped over her shoulder. ‘What’s going on, Dad?’ she asked.

‘Go back and join everyone else,’ Stirling said. ‘Rosco, take them back to the dining room, please.’

It was too late. Gina and Rosco’s new girlfriend and Charlie’s mother had now joined them in the hall. They all stared in puzzled astonishment at Lloyd. All except for Stirling. Because Stirling knew. He knew what this was about. Lloyd looked at his uncle in disgust, daring him to refute the truth in front of everyone.

Then something happened which he hadn’t bargained on. He suddenly felt sorry for Stirling. He could see the pain of regret deeply etched in his face. And seeing that, the fight went out of Lloyd. He had wanted so much to hurt Stirling, but he couldn’t go through with it. How could he when there was Gina, stricken to the core, her customary expression of cool politeness congealing on her tired face; Scarlet anxiously clutching her newborn baby; Charlie and his parents just their usual absurdly affable what-in-the-world-is-going-on? selves; Laura glancing nervously at Rosco, and Rosco looking like he might take a swing at Lloyd. But most of all, it was the expression on Stirling’s ashen face that held him in check. His uncle was a beaten man and he knew it. And whatever else Lloyd might be, he could not kick a man when he was down.

Moreover, he could not put a slur on his parents’ integrity, dead or alive. His mother was the gentlest and most kind-hearted woman he knew, with not a malicious bone in her body. What would she think of him coming here like this? And Katie. She had walked away with her dignity and integrity intact, able to know that in years to come she had behaved with impeccable strength.

But even so, Lloyd had to make his position clear; he had to do that much. ‘I just want you to know that because of you, Uncle Stirling, I’ll never see Katie again. She’s not only left you in peace, just as you wanted, she’s left me as well. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive you for that. And now I’ll leave you to get back to your lunch. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.’

‘Who the dickens is Katie?’ asked Charlie’s father in the stunned silence.

‘She’s no one,’ Rosco said bitterly.

The barbed dismissal was too much for Lloyd. He might not be able to bring himself to thump Stirling, but Rosco was a different matter altogether.

The punch landed squarely on Rosco’s jaw and before he even saw it coming, causing him to lose his balance and tumble backwards, landing ungainly on his backside, his hand catching against a vase of cut flowers on a console table and knocking it flying.

‘She’s your half-sister,’ Lloyd said, looking down at his cousin on the floor, amidst gasps of shock. ‘And don’t you ever forget it.’

Rosco got to his feet, making a great play of picking off several stems of roses from his clothes. He squared himself up to Lloyd, as if ready to take him on.

‘Stop it!’ cried Scarlet tearfully. ‘Daddy, make them stop.’

Stirling put himself between the two of them. ‘Enough,’ he said quietly. ‘This has gone too far.’

‘Not for me it hasn’t,’ snarled Rosco.

‘Careful,’ warned Lloyd. ‘You don’t want your new girlfriend to see the real you, do you?’

‘I said
enough
!’ Stirling then turned to face everyone. He focused in particular on Charlie’s parents. ‘Katie is my daughter from an affair I had thirty years ago. It was a mistake on my part, but I can never describe Katie as a mistake.’ He looked at his wife, then at Rosco and Scarlet. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but Lloyd is right. I’ve behaved badly in bowing to your wishes to cut Katie out of our family. I thought I could do it, but I just can’t go through with disowning her.’ He hesitated.

Could he go on? Yes, he told himself, he had to. Witnessing Lloyd’s own act of stoicism, of stepping back from the brink of what he’d obviously come here to do – spoiling for a showdown for the sake of the girl he cared about – was the final nail of shame in the coffin. If Lloyd could behave with such strength of character, then he had to try and match that strength. Or at least come close to it. And it was now or never. He might never find the courage again; he needed this heat-of-the-moment opportunity to make a clean breast of things. If he didn’t, he could see no future for himself. Just as his beloved brother hadn’t been able to.