Willow examined her split ends as if they were the most interesting thing that had ever existed.
‘This is a lovely place to live,’ Autumn tried.
‘It’s boring,’ Willow said, emphatically.
‘Have you got a nice group of friends?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘They’re all farmers’ kids,’ she said as if they had a terrible, incurable disease. ‘Straw-chewers. I’ve got nothing in common with them.’
‘That must be hard. I remember when I was at boarding school with a lot of posh, high-maintenance girls. I was a bit Goth too – so I thought – before I veered towards bohemian. I’d just had enough of the eyeliner on my pillow, really. I was the only vegetarian in my class and I supported the Green Party. Everyone thought I was weird. The rest of the girls just wanted to talk about boys.’ She tried a laugh at the memory, but it had been painful at the time and it was more than ironic that she was the one out of all of them who had ended up pregnant. ‘It was terrible. I didn’t have lots of friends. None, really. I know what it feels like to be on the outside.’
Picking at her black nail varnish, Willow said, ‘I don’t care.’ When, patently, she cared very much.
Mary came back and fussed and fiddled with the cups while she poured. Then Autumn and Mary sat drinking tea and making excruciating small talk while Willow glowered at them both.
‘Why don’t you and Autumn go for a walk?’ Mary said brightly when conversation was clearly drying up. ‘Take Jack across the field.’
Willow shook her head.
‘Maybe I should go now,’ Autumn said. ‘It’s been a lot to take in.’
‘Half an hour wouldn’t hurt, would it, Willow? Autumn has come a long way.’
The girl shrugged as if she didn’t care one way or the other. Her face said that Autumn could have come from the moon as far as she was concerned; it still wouldn’t impress her. ‘OK.’ She stood up, hands jammed in her pockets.
‘Show Autumn the wood. It’s lovely up there. A bit early for the bluebells, but it will still be pleasant.’
Willow rolled her eyes.
Autumn hadn’t expected it to be easy. She’d just have to do this on Willow’s terms. She owed her that much.
‘That sounds nice,’ Autumn said, trying to look hopeful.
‘It’ll be boring,’ Willow countered. ‘Like everything around here is.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
Autumn and Willow fell into step next to each other. The little dog ran ahead. They strode away from the farmhouse, crossing the meticulously maintained back garden. Willow had her head down, shoulders hunched, hands buried in the depths of her hoodie. Autumn noticed that Mary was watching them through the window with a worried expression.
At the far corner of the garden was a half-hidden gate. Willow pushed aside some rampant climbing plant and opened it. Then they headed along the track beside the field. Green shoots of a future crop were pushing hopefully through the earth. Autumn dipped into her pocket and pulled out a bar of Galaxy.
‘Sustenance.’ She broke off a few squares and handed them to Willow. ‘I’m a total chocoholic,’ Autumn admitted. ‘I forgot to mention that.’
Willow’s first proper smile. ‘Me too.’ ‘My boyfriend gave me this bar for courage. This isn’t easy for either of us.’
Willow said nothing.
‘What’s your favourite?’
‘I like Fairtrade chocolate. Dark is my fave.’
‘Me too,’ Autumn said. ‘Though I do like a good white chocolate, too.’
They walked a few more paces in silence.
‘There’s a great place in London that I’d like to take you one day, if you’d let me. It’s my favourite café. Chocolate Heaven.’
‘Sounds cool.’
She was sure that, despite their misgivings, Lucy would be back in control there soon. Her daughter would love it.
‘If you’re up for it, I’ll ask Mary if we can organise it.’
‘She just wants me to be happy,’ Willow said, flatly.
‘Me too.’ At the risk of sounding like she was interrogating her daughter, she asked, ‘What kind of music do you like?’
‘Retro Goth, some old-style punk,’ she said, a reluctant air of enthusiasm finally coming out. ‘The Cure, Evanescence, the Damned, Siouxsie and the Banshees. That sort of stuff.’
‘At least I’ve heard of those,’ Autumn said.
‘I play the guitar,’ Willow offered.
‘Any good?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Totally rubbish.’
Then they both laughed. At that moment, she knew that it was going to be all right and tears prickled behind her eyes once more.
‘I’m glad that you looked for me,’ Autumn said.
‘I sort of wanted to know where I came from,’ Willow mumbled.
‘Doesn’t everyone?’
‘I guess so.’
‘I’ll tell you whatever you want to know,’ Autumn said. ‘You only have to ask.’
‘Usual stuff,’ Willow said, sullenly. ‘What happened. Why you decided to get rid of me.’
‘OK.’ Now the tricky bit. They walked in silence for a few moments while Autumn tried to find the right words. She’d rehearsed this in her head so many times, imagined this situation, but now she finally had a chance to tell her side of the story, she didn’t want to make a mess of it.
Autumn took a deep breath before she said, ‘I fell pregnant with you when I was fourteen years old. About the same age as you are now. I didn’t know the boy very well, but I thought I loved him madly.’ Her throat was closing with emotion, but she forced herself to plough on. ‘My parents sent me away to have you – to Switzerland – and, very soon after you were born, they made me put you up for adoption. I was too young, too naive to understand what was really being asked of me. I was in a state of panic and had no idea what to do. I just did what my parents said without question. I couldn’t see another way. I know that it broke my heart, though. You were my baby and I adored you the moment I set eyes on you. There hasn’t been a day in all these years that I haven’t thought about you.’
Willow walked beside her, stony-faced, digesting the information. ‘So you wanted to keep me?’
‘Desperately.’ Autumn brushed away a tear. ‘But I had no way of looking after you. I felt, at the time, that I had to accept what my parents had planned. They thought it was for the best.’
Willow’s chin jutted defiantly. ‘Was it?’
‘No. Not for a minute. It was a terrible thing to do.’
Her daughter looked deep in thought for a moment, then said, ‘What happened to your mum and dad?’
‘They live in London. They’re both lawyers.’
‘Do they know that you’ve come to see me?’
‘No,’ Autumn admitted. ‘I’m not very close to my parents. They have busy lives.’
Willow processed this. ‘Where’s my dad now?’
That question was much harder to answer. ‘I don’t know. Sadly, he doesn’t even know about you. He was a gardener at my boarding school. He was a few years older than me, but only seventeen or eighteen – I’m not sure now. When the school found out about our relationship, he was sacked immediately. I was sent abroad and never saw him again.’ She wondered if he’d ever come back to the school looking for her, but thought probably not. He’d been just a kid, too.
They kept to the track alongside the hedgerow as they climbed up away from the house.
‘We go in here,’ Willow said. ‘This is what Mum thought would be “pleasant”.’
It sounded strange to hear her call someone else ‘Mum’. She wondered if Willow would ever come to know her well enough to be able to call her that, too. Currently, it seemed a long way off. Perhaps she’d given up that privilege for ever.
‘It looks lovely.’
‘It’s just stupid trees,’ she said with disdain.
It was a small copse with a narrow winding path – just enough room for them still to
walk alongside each other. The sun shone through the trees casting dappled shadows at their feet. It was, as Mary had said, too early for the bluebells, but it wouldn’t be long before they were out. The dog snuffled happily through all the mounds of leaves, still abundant on the ground from last year’s fall.
Willow finished her chocolate and Autumn broke off some more to hand to her.
‘What was his name?’
‘His first name was Finn. I can’t even remember his surname.’
Willow’s face showed her disappointment. ‘Not much chance of me finding him then.’
‘I wouldn’t know where to start,’ Autumn acknowledged. ‘I knew so little about him. But he was kind, funny.’ And he had shown her some love and attention. That was the main reason she used to sneak out of the dormitory to meet him. Like Willow now, she felt so alone, so isolated. It was no wonder that she clung to the first crumb of affection she was offered. ‘Perhaps my old school would have some information on him. He was a casual worker and only there for a short time, so it’s a long shot.’
The girl brightened. ‘Worth trying, though.’
Autumn wondered how she’d feel to be reunited with Willow’s father after all this time, and how he’d feel to learn that he had a daughter. She hadn’t even had a chance to tell him that she was pregnant. It had been easy to turn a blind eye to missing a few periods, to put the fact that her tummy was becoming rounded down to the stodgy school meals. It was only when it became impossible to ignore that she’d sneaked into the local town and had bought a pregnancy test. She’d crept out of the dormitory before everyone else was up to use it in secret and had never known fear quite like it when the test showed positive. She didn’t have a friend she could share her terror with, no one to confide in. Autumn ended up having to tell the school matron, who immediately summoned her parents. They didn’t take her anywhere quiet where she could break it to them gently. They sat upright on hardback chairs in the headmaster’s study with the matron and the headmaster watching on while she blurted it out. She’d known exactly how they’d react and the thought of that conversation made her feel sick even now.
She was bundled out of school that day, an embarrassment to all, and never went back.
‘I thought you’d be old,’ Willow said, pulling Autumn back to the present. ‘Like Mum.’
Autumn smiled to herself. Mary was probably late forties at the most. ‘I was just your age when I had you.’
‘If I had a baby now, I’d keep it,’ Willow said, defiantly. ‘No way I’d give it away. No matter what anyone said. I’d run away with it.’
‘There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t regret what I did,’ she replied sadly. ‘I think, if you had a baby, that Mary would support you. She seems like a lovely mother.’
A pink flush came to Willow’s cheeks.
‘I wasn’t so lucky. My parents were very harsh and I hadn’t learned that I could stand up to them.’ She still wasn’t sure that she had, even now. ‘I didn’t know what else to do, so I did what they wanted. It was the biggest mistake of my life. I should have kept you, whatever it took.’ She wasn’t sure, but it looked as if Willow brushed a tear away from her eye with the sleeve of her hoodie. All Autumn wanted to do was hug her. ‘But I’d like to try to make up for the time we’ve lost. If you’ll let me.’
Willow stopped and stared at her. It seemed as if she was trying to look into her soul, to work out if she could allow this woman into her life. She was hurting and didn’t want to risk getting hurt even more. She looked so tiny, so vulnerable.
Autumn opened her arms and, with only a brief hesitation, Willow stepped into them. Then her daughter cried – her body tight with tension, pressed against Autumn.
‘It will be all right,’ Autumn soothed. ‘Everything will be all right now.’
And she hoped with all of her heart that she could keep her promise.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chantal linked her arm with Jacob’s, strolling alongside him as he pushed the buggy. The spring bulbs were waving their cheery heads in the warm breeze. Swathes of daffodils and crocuses covered the grass by the pathways. St James’s Park was one of her favourite spots in London and the bright sunshine made it even more special. Lana was sleeping blissfully, unaware of the beautiful day. Chantal had even taken her jacket off, the first time in the year. Summer would soon be on its way. Her heart felt both happy and sad at the same time. She wondered if you experienced everything more keenly when you realised that it might be taken away from you. Was the brilliance of the day more poignant when you were made keenly aware that you may not have many more of them?
‘You’re quiet,’ Jacob said.
‘Just thinking.’
‘I don’t want you to worry.’
‘I’m not,’ she assured him. Well, not too much. That was
partly because she still felt it was unreal, that it was happening to someone else and not to her. ‘The weird thing is that I don’t even feel unwell. I’m a bit tired and still having a few twinges, but I’m prepared to believe that’s just my age. And what mum with a baby isn’t tired?’ Surely with a cancer in her body, she’d know; she’d feel worse than this. Perhaps when it came down to it, the doctor might be wrong. It happened.
Now all she could do was wait to hear from the clinic for an appointment to remove the offending lump. Livia said it would be a very straightforward operation. Thankfully, she’d been told that she’d likely only have to wait a few days rather than weeks. Until then, it would gnaw away at her, no matter how much bravado she tried.
‘I’ll take time off work,’ Jacob said. ‘I’ve already started delegating. I can be at home to look after Lana while you’re in hospital, and when you’re recuperating I want to be there to care for you.’
Chantal rested her head on his shoulder. ‘What would I do without you?’
‘No regrets?’ Jacob asked.
‘None,’ she said, emphatically. ‘Absolutely.’
‘We should get married,’ he said suddenly, stopping in his tracks.
Chantal laughed. ‘I’m not actually divorced yet.’
‘But it won’t be long,’ he countered. ‘It would be good to make plans for our future.’
Future? She wondered, bleakly, if she’d have one at all.
‘Let’s see if I come through this,’ Chantal said, her voice catching with unexpected emotion.
It had all seemed so set, so easy. She and Jacob would take things slowly, deepening their love before they moved forward onto the next step. Now she felt as if someone had started an alarm clock ticking. Like one of those red LED displays on a bomb in action films. Except this time the clock was ticking on her life.
‘There is no question that you’ll survive it,’ Jacob said with conviction. ‘I’m not waiting all this time to be with you only to have our days together cut short. That’s just not in the plan. It won’t happen.’
‘I’m happy to believe that.’ But inside she was scared. Her cancer was a non-aggressive type. The consultant had been very keen to point that out. And it had been detected early. That wasn’t to say that it was going to be a bed of roses. Despite what Livia said, Chantal was well aware that not everyone got their happy ending. ‘You shouldn’t be tied to me until you know that I’m going to be around for a long time to enjoy it.’
‘Shouldn’t I be involved in that decision?’
‘You know what I mean, Jacob.’
‘Promise me as soon as you’re well again that we’ll get married?’
‘Yes.’
‘I think I need more than that. It seemed like a very feeble assurance to me.’ Jacob left the buggy abruptly and went to pick a daffodil.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m sure that the park can spare one. This is an important occasion.’ When he came back, clutching the cheery yellow bloom, he dropped to one knee in front of her and proffered the daffodil. ‘Chantal Hamilton, would you do me the very great honour of being my wife?’
br /> Tears spilled over her lashes as she took it from him. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’d like that very much.’
‘When this is done, when you’ve been given the all-clear, I’ll go down on one knee again with the biggest diamond I can lay my hands on.’
‘This is all I need,’ she said, looking at the daffodil. ‘It’s beautiful.’
Jacob stood and took her in his arms. He held her as if he never wanted to let her go. The few people passing by that had paused to witness his proposal burst into spontaneous applause. Chantal felt herself blush, and her heart wanted to burst with love.
‘Now you have to get better,’ he said. ‘You have a promise to keep.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
As much as Nadia tried to pretend not to be, she was still quite shaken by her mugging. The bank card and credit card had been cancelled, the locks changed, her mobile phone replaced, but, despite all those measures, it had still left her feeling more vulnerable than before.
More than ever she was left wondering what she was doing living in a run-down area and working at a rubbish job. She’d had no contact from the man who’d pushed her to the ground and stolen her handbag, thankfully. He’d just disappeared into the night with her belongings, but that didn’t stop her being scared now every evening on her way home from work. Even when it was still light. From the minute she left the office she was anxiously looking over her shoulder until she was safely behind her double-locked front door. She’d bought a panic alarm, which she kept tightly gripped in her fist. She kept her phone, credit cards and money on a pouch around her waist inside her coat. It was a ridiculous way to live.
She’d started to put Lewis straight into her bed too, not wanting to sleep alone. Just feeling the warmth of another human being alongside her comforted her, and she could protect him too. She tucked him in and kissed his head.
The trip to Cumbria couldn’t come soon enough. ‘How many sleeps until we go to see Seth and Lily?’ Lewis asked.
‘Not many now,’ Nadia said. She was glad that he was excited about their trip and a change of scenery would do them both good. ‘If you go to sleep straight away, then it will be here even quicker.’