A Midwinter Promise Read online

  At the heart of it, though, was the man whose love and attention they were all struggling for: Pa. Now lying in the hospital, close to death. The dreadful resolution might already be here.

  All the times he’d driven up and down this road, as a student, a young man, newly married with Netta beside him, a father with babies slumbering in the back as they headed down for a visit at Christmas, the boot crammed with the kit children needed – somewhere in his mind he’d known that one day there would be a final journey, when this long story would come to some kind of end.

  I don’t want it to be now. I don’t want it to be yet.

  The dual carriageway turned into single-lane road, the street lamps disappeared and he was driving into pitch darkness, seeing only what his headlights picked out. He passed the turn-off for Tawray although it was almost invisible in the dark, and felt the bitter pang that now accompanied thoughts of that beautiful old house, gone forever.

  Don’t think about that now. You have to think about Pa.

  Chapter Three

  Alex pulled the car to a halt outside Tim’s small terraced house in a newly built estate on the edge of town.

  ‘Here we are!’ she said brightly, not wanting the girls to pick up on her anxiety, but they were wide-eyed and muted. Hurried evening trips to Dad’s house were not part of their usual routine. Jasmine was usually in bed by now and she looked out of place, sitting in her car seat, her pyjamas under her coat and Teddy Weddy under one arm. Alex got them out of the car and the girls stood huddled together in the darkness of the porch as she rang the doorbell. The urge to get to the hospital was powerful, making Alex edgy and breathless. ‘Come on,’ she muttered under her breath as they waited. At last the door opened.

  ‘Oh!’ She blinked with surprise at the figure standing in the brightly lit hall. ‘Hello?’

  It was a woman, small and neat with honey-blonde hair that fell to her shoulders and big blue eyes. Not Tim. ‘Hi. You must be Alex.’

  ‘Yes. You must be Chloe.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Alex stared at the other woman, feeling Scarlett stiffen beside her and clutch her hand more tightly. ‘I was expecting Tim to be here.’

  ‘He just texted. He’s been held up at work.’

  ‘I need to leave the girls with him.’

  ‘You can leave them with me. It’s fine.’

  ‘Mummy,’ Jasmine said softly, and she pushed herself close to Alex’s side. She seemed suddenly so small.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Alex said uncertainly. She knew Scarlett and Jasmine had met Chloe but it was a leap to being on their own with her. And I don’t know her. But what choice do I have?

  ‘They’ll be perfectly okay,’ Chloe said.

  Alex looked at Scarlett, who was mature for seven years old. She gazed back with solemn eyes. ‘Will you be all right here with Chloe till Dad gets back? So I can get to the hospital?’

  ‘Yes,’ Scarlett said bravely. ‘Won’t we, Jasmine?’

  Jasmine hugged Teddy Weddy tightly and said nothing.

  ‘Thank you, sweetie,’ Alex whispered. Then she said brightly, ‘You’ll be fine, Jasmine. Scarlett’s with you. And Dad will be home soon.’

  ‘I’m not going to bite,’ Chloe said with a smile.

  ‘Of course not.’ Alex tried to smile back, but she was fighting her own internal battle. Every fibre inside her resisted sending her daughters into the house with a strange woman. She could feel their reluctance and it pained her. In any other circumstance, she would take them straight home. But that was the whole point. She didn’t have a choice. ‘Go on. I’ll come and pick you up as soon as I can. If you have to stay, Dad will get you to school tomorrow.’

  ‘I can make hot chocolate,’ Chloe suggested, and Alex felt a small wave of gratitude.

  ‘Thanks, they’d love that. Clean your teeth afterwards, remember.’ The girls moved slowly past Chloe into the brightly lit hall. The stairs at the end led up into gloom.

  Oh God, I don’t want them to go in there alone with her.

  But she said, ‘Goodnight, sweethearts, be good, I’ll be back before you know it,’ and turned to leave, hearing the door close behind them with a sense of despair that she couldn’t explain.

  Alex arrived at the hospital fifteen minutes later, hurrying into the brightly lit lobby, so intent on reaching Pa that she hardly noticed her surroundings. She disliked hospitals and had had both her babies at home. Even going in for a scan had made her palms prickle and sweat break out around her hairline. She knew the work they did was good, but there was something about them that she found difficult to endure.

  But this was different. She was heading for a specialist unit devoted to stroke treatments. It was her father’s great luck that he lived only a twenty-minute ambulance race to one of the best units in the country. Instead of panic, she felt relief, knowing that all this – the staff, the hospital paraphernalia, the beeps and buzzes – meant they were busy keeping Pa alive.

  In the lift, she pulled out her phone and tapped out a text.

  Tim, where are you? I had to leave the girls with a stranger. I’m not happy. Please let me know as soon as you’re back. I’m at the hospital.

  She sent it, wondering if the girls were all right. The way Scarlett had stiffened beside her bothered her. Didn’t she like Chloe? If not, why not? So far Alex had resisted talking about this new woman to them; Tim’s girlfriend hadn’t seemed real until now and, in any case, she might be a flash in the pan. But if she was going to be in charge of the girls . . . well, that was another matter. Just then a text popped up.

  I’m home now. All fine.

  That was obviously all she was going to get from Tim, but at least she could relax knowing the girls were with their father.

  The lift doors opened and she emerged into the stroke unit. A nurse at reception directed her, and she found Pa’s room down a long corridor. The first thing she saw as she went in was the back of Sally’s blonde head, the frosted highlights set crisply into place with the usual layer of hairspray. Beneath that was an expanse of sugary pink cashmere cardigan; Alex sometimes wondered where Sally went to find such expensive clothes in shades that were so subtly horrible. And she was barely sixty and yet had settled easily into dressing like someone ten years older, as though she was keeping pace with her husband and hadn’t noticed that modern sixty-somethings didn’t have to set their hair and wear kilts and sensible woollens. Johnnie said she was still stuck in the eighties, her glory years. That was why she liked to clip little velvet bows on the fronts of her black patent shoes. Alex had giggled and said, ‘For some bizarre reason, she wants to look like a cross between an aged duchess and Dolly Parton – all blonde hair and pink, but in calf-length skirts, jumpers and pearls.’

  ‘God, you’re right,’ Johnnie had said with a guffaw. ‘I love that. The Queen meets Mae West.’

  ‘The love child of Margaret Thatcher and Patsy from Ab Fab.’

  Laughing at Sally was one of their mutual pleasures.

  ‘Otherwise we’d cry,’ Johnnie would say simply.

  ‘Laughing is better,’ Alex would agree. So they did.

  I can’t laugh about her now.

  ‘Hi,’ Alex said quietly, her gaze going straight to her father, lying unconscious in the high hospital bed, connected to myriad blinking machines and a drip of clear fluid.

  Sally turned, her eyebrows high, then saw it was Alex, and her face dropped just a little. ‘Oh, I thought you were the consultant. You’ve been ages.’

  ‘I came as quickly as I could. I had to give the girls supper and get them to Tim.’ She leaned down as Sally tipped her face up to receive her kiss. Alex brushed her lips over the powdered cheek, smelling the familiar mixture of floral scent, soap and perfumed washing powder. ‘How’s Pa?’

  Sally blinked hard and they both looked over at the prone figure on the bed.

  Alex’s heart contracted at the sight.

  He looks so much older.

  Pa lay in his
hospital bed, white hair against a white pillow, a light blue hospital gown covering his shoulders, sheet drawn up to his chest. One arm lay on top of the sheet, attached to a snaking clear tube gummed down to the skin by a blue plaster. Pa’s cheeks seemed to have sunk in on themselves and they were crazed with red veins – or perhaps it was only that the veins were more visible now that his complexion was a whitish-grey. His eyes were closed and his mouth slightly open, and he lay unmoving as though in a deep sleep. His skin looked thin, his hair wispy, and everything about him seemed worn out and exhausted.

  When did he stop being Pa?

  Somehow she hadn’t noticed him changing from the father she adored: the tall, vital man with the dark thatch of hair, the jet-black colour she had inherited, and the deep blue eyes that made him look like some dangerous Irish gypsy hero from an old romance.

  Fear seized her, potently mixed with love. Was she really about to lose him? No. Not yet. I’m not ready. She had thought there were years left. He was still young, only just seventy. He was fit and healthy, he loved to walk and play golf and enjoy life . . . This wasn’t supposed to happen.

  ‘We’re waiting on the scan results. And the consultant is due anytime. Meanwhile, he’s stable.’ Sally’s voice had a touch of a tremor in it.

  Alex dropped her bag and went over to Pa’s side. She put her hand on his, noticing the purple blotches and liver spots and the thick blue rope of vein running over it. It was cool to the touch and for a moment she felt a rush of panic that he was dead, then saw he was still breathing. ‘But you said he was taken ill yesterday?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Sally, why on earth didn’t you ring me then?’ Alex said, looking over at her stepmother, bewildered.

  Sally’s voice took on a note of steel. ‘My first priority was David, not you. I did what was best for him.’ She gave the little sniff Alex knew well, the one that showed offence had been taken. ‘I’m sorry if you feel that wasn’t good enough.’

  Alex reached inside herself for calm. Her mantra was ‘don’t let her hurt you’ and she muttered it mentally a couple of times, finding it helped. She wasn’t going to rise to it. It always felt as though Sally was spoiling for a fight, ready to take offence, keen to be outraged. Alex coped by never responding but skating over it lightly as though she hadn’t noticed the haughtiness, the warning tones, the lifted chin. ‘I’ve called Johnnie. He’s on his way. You can tell us all about it when he gets here.’

  Sally’s lips tightened slightly. She was no fan of Johnnie’s. She liked to keep him as far away as possible. Alex had a sudden flashback to a summer holiday, when Sally had laid a large lunch for everyone on the table in the garden – there must have been visitors that day, because there seemed to be lots of places. But when Johnnie came up to sit down, there was no place for him. Sally had said something poisonously sweet in that way she had: ‘Oh, I’m so sorry! I thought you preferred to eat your lunch inside. You seem to enjoy your own company so much these days. I’ve left yours on the kitchen table.’ That was how Alex remembered it. Johnnie’s face and its stony expression, her own sense of being stabbed in the heart on his behalf. Sally had always been kinder to her than to Johnnie, knowing how Pa adored her. Sally was far too smart to hurt Alex in the way she liked to punish Johnnie. She had her own secret, hidden ways of doing that.

  Alex gazed at her father, then sighed and bent down to kiss his cool cheek. ‘I’m here, Pa,’ she whispered. ‘Johnnie’s coming too. You’ll be all right. You’re going to get better.’ She squeezed his hand, as though wanting to send some of her own vitality through the barrier of their skin and into his bloodstream. ‘You can do it.’

  ‘Of course, David does too much,’ Sally said mournfully. ‘He takes on far too many commitments, and he won’t listen. He just accepted the role of Chair of Governors at Cheadlings Prep. I said it was more than he could manage, but he won’t have it.’ She shook her head, her green-blue eyes sad, and took out her make-up bag, snapped open a compact and inspected herself. She patted away a non-existent shine with a small make-up puff. ‘What with overseeing the clubhouse renovation at the golf course and sitting on the board of trustees for the hospice . . .’ She pulled out a lipstick, twisted up the pale pink stick and applied it over her lips. ‘I warned him, I really did.’ Her eyes filled with tears as she put her make-up away. ‘And now look . . .’

  ‘I’m sure you did, you’ve always looked after him,’ Alex said softly. She sat down in the chair next to Pa’s bed, still holding his hand.

  ‘Yes,’ Sally said, but as though she were contradicting Alex, not agreeing with her. ‘He’s my world.’

  Alex nodded. She knew what was coming: the familiar litany of everything Sally did for Alex’s father, as though it were some huge gift to Alex herself, for which she should be endlessly grateful. From Alex’s point of view, it was a little different. She thought Sally had done quite well from marrying Pa: her life was hardly onerous; it was comfortable, ordered and looked very satisfactory from the outside. She seemed to get her own way most of the time, and she and Pa lived the enviable life of prosperous pensioners in good health, with plenty of holidays and outings and treats.

  Alex sat there quietly as Sally talked about her many duties and obligations and how hard she worked to look after Pa, but she wasn’t really listening. Instead, the fact that Sally hadn’t called her immediately when Pa first got ill was running round her mind, making her nervous.

  Why didn’t she call me?

  Alex had long learned to trust the prickles of instinct that warned her trouble was in the offing. Like a farmer who could sniff a storm in the air, she had discovered she had an internal warning system that pinged loudly when things with Sally were veering off course and appearances were not to be trusted. Sometimes Sally could be outwardly happy to see her but the faintest chill in a kiss on the cheek, or a swerved glance, or the tiniest change in tone of voice could tell the real truth: something was badly wrong and Alex was going to be punished for it. They would set off down the well-trodden path, its every step familiar. First, Alex would have to find out what had upset Sally, whose modus operandi was pretty familiar after all these years. The almost imperceptible chilliness was the first sign. Then the freeze set in: phone calls unanswered, lunches or meetings cancelled without explanation, sudden illnesses that meant she had to retire to bed like a Victorian matron with the vapours. Goodness only knew how long that state of affairs would continue if Alex didn’t step in to end it, but she always did; she suspected Sally was quite capable of keeping it up for years, if she wanted to. Her next step in the face of Alex’s questions about what was wrong was to deny everything for the first dozen times of asking, before finally beginning to hint at the problem. Then, when Alex stumbled on it – the throwaway comment, missed call or unthinking action that had caused the offence – the sniff and averted glance would announce that the source of all the trouble had been found. After that, it was time for humble apologies, flowers and promises to be good.

  She had been talking about it only this week, when she and Di had gone out for their weekly drink at the bistro in town. The arrangement had started as a book club with half a dozen others who had all gradually dropped out, so it ended up just the two of them no longer discussing books, but talking about their lives and sharing their problems.

  ‘Why do you do it?’ Di had asked, astonished, when Alex poured it all out about her latest transgression. It had turned out that Sally was offended she had not yet been told anything about the girls’ school carol service, which, for some reason, she seemed keen to attend despite never being interested in previous years. Only once Alex had worked out the problem, apologised, explained that she hadn’t yet been given the official form to fill in for seats and promised to include Sally and David when she did, had Sally thawed. Then Sally revealed that she’d heard the mayoress was expected to attend and she was hoping to ensnare her in a friendly chat.

  Alex rolled her eyes at Di. ‘Nothing to do
with watching the girls.’

  ‘Tell her to get knotted!’ Di said indignantly.

  Alex shook her head. ‘Can’t do that. I have to keep her happy.’

  ‘Really? Why?’

  ‘She’s my stepmother. My father’s wife. I don’t have a choice.’

  ‘I still don’t see why you have to be pushed around. How long has she been married to your father?’

  ‘Since I was nine. But she’s been around as long as I can remember actually.’ Alex frowned. Yes, there had never been a time when she hadn’t known Sally. That was an odd thought. ‘She lived near us before my mother died.’

  Di raised her eyebrows. ‘Your mother knew your father’s second wife?’

  ‘Yes. Very well.’

  ‘Oh.’ Di looked a little awkward, and then said positively, ‘So maybe she’d be happy your dad ended up with her.’

  ‘Maybe. I don’t know.’ Alex still found it too painful to think about. Going into what her mother’s mental processes might have been all those years ago was not something she could do.

  Di took a sip of her wine and said, ‘It’s odd because the way you talk about her, it seems like you two don’t know each other awfully well. But she’s known you since you were a child.’

  ‘Yes.’ Alex stared at the table. It was hard to explain the strange currents of emotion that ran between her and Sally, and the way their relationship had developed. Because I don’t really understand them myself.

  ‘So you shouldn’t have to play her games,’ Di said firmly. ‘Don’t humour her, you’re just encouraging it. Tell her frankly she’s being passive aggressive and you’d appreciate some honest communication.’

  Alex sighed, thinking that only someone as good-hearted and uncomplicated as Di could think it would be so simple. ‘You don’t understand. I can’t afford to piss her off. I think she might be capable of getting me banished.’