A Vintage Year, page 26
‘I think it’s a start,’ said Charlie. ‘It’s sort of considered the norm, even nowadays …’
‘It’s the most staggeringly irrelevant bit of the whole damned mess. Tell him, Geoffrey,’ she snapped before sighing with irritation and fatigue.
They were all in the big kitchen at the farmhouse. Caroline had brought the puppies up from Dove Cottage. Geoffrey had also turned up and taken up quiet, useful residence in the corner. His job appeared to be mainly making the tea and agreeing with her.
At Caroline’s command Geoffrey had come forward to sit opposite Charlie.
‘Your mother’s right,’ he said, giving Charlie an apologetic look.
‘Of course, I’m right.’
‘And precisely what is it she’s right about this time?’ Charlie asked Geoffrey.
‘I think she may well be referring to my role as stepfather. When I met my wife, she was – inconveniently – married to someone else, which wasn’t ideal. However, he was violent towards her – which also wasn’t ideal, so – when I had managed to extricate her from that situation and made her my wife I found myself with the delightful privilege of bringing up her two daughters. This was,’ he paused with sad modesty ‘by far the thing of which I am most proud in my life to date.’
Charlie blinked. ‘And where are they now?’ he asked, bluntly.
Caroline made as if to remonstrate, but Geoffrey held up his hand. ‘The boy asks a fair question. I regret to say I have not been in the same room as my stepdaughters or their children, for nearly fifteen months now.’
‘Why?’ It came out blunter than Charlie intended.
‘To keep them safe.’
‘Congratulations,’ replied Charlie. ‘You got me there. Totally not what I was expecting you to say.’
‘It’s an – unusual – situation,’ Geoffrey agreed.
‘So?’
‘I rather thought you might be able to tell me,’ said Geoffrey, ‘given that you have been keeping me under surveillance, I gather …’
‘Ah, sorry about that.’
‘Not at all. I’m touched that you would be so protective of your mother. I wouldn’t dream of replacing you, naturally, but I feel the same way.’
‘We didn’t manage to work anything out,’ Charlie admitted. ‘Except that we probably shouldn’t be keeping the two of you apart.’
‘I’m grateful for that,’ said Geoffrey inclining his head.
‘So am I,’ piped up Caroline, checking one of the pups from head to tail before popping it back down on the floor. ‘Whilst I am touched and all that, you really must let me make my own mistakes. God knows I’ve made a few in my time but I’m pretty certain Geoffrey isn’t one of them.’
Charlie looked up to see the two of them exchange a secret smile.
‘Well go on, then,’ said Charlie, ‘seeing as I’m such an idiot …’
‘Not at all,’ said Geoffrey. ‘As I said, these are extremely unusual circumstances. The truth is, for the safety of my family – and,’ he added as an afterthought, ‘myself … I’ve been put into the witness protection scheme.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Charlie’s jaw dropped. ‘What did you do?’ he said at last.
‘Me? Nothing criminal. Not myself, you have to believe me … What I did is testify against my employers, who were not good people. My being a witness in court meant long prison sentences for them but exposure to some considerable risk from their associates. It was proposed that the witness protection scheme was the best and most practical way to keep my family safe.’
‘So, you’re married?’ said Charlie, bristling.
‘My wife and I divorced amicably a few years before, but the men I sold down the river were entirely aware that I adore my daughters and their families. I have four grandchildren,’ he said, smiling in pride. ‘Step grandchildren I suppose, technically, but they are astonishing and amazing. So …’ he shook himself, returning to his story, ‘after years of becoming slowly aware of certain financial irregularities, which as the firm’s accountant I had a responsibility to point out – actually that’s partly the reason for the divorce,’ he broke off to explain, ‘my wife quite reasonably got fed up with my always working and fretting about the situation without ending it. Anyway …’ he sighed. ‘When I finally woke up and realised it was down to me, my life as I knew it came to an abrupt halt.’
‘Where were you working?’ said Charlie.
‘The men ran a firm called “Environt”.’
‘That was you?’ said Charlie, astonished. ‘No shit?’
Geoffrey nodded.
‘I know, me too,’ said Caroline. ‘When he told me, I could hardly believe he had been wrapped up in that. He was the brave witness the papers were talking about. The one who brought down the whole edifice, the people trafficking, the drugs, the prostitution, all hidden behind a company supposedly investing in saving the planet …’
‘That was amazing,’ said Charlie. ‘I remember reading about it. Like Al Capone, the justice system got them on accounting irregularities, but the police knew they were involved in all this other stuff …’ Charlie shook his head in admiration.
‘That’s why I had to do it,’ admitted Geoffrey. ‘Looking at my grandchildren, wondering if my employers were going to smuggle in the MDMA that they might be offered at a pop concert, that might take them away from me. Knowing that other families were losing their children to this filthy poison they were peddling.’
‘How could you not have known?’
‘I was just doing my job. I was an accountant. I didn’t lie about that when we met. I really was an accountant. It took a while. And a lot of digging.’
‘So that woman we saw, coming to visit you. With the letters?’
‘My handler. She brings letters from my family. It’s all I have at the moment, but I hope that will gradually change. Realistically, though, that life is over for me now, but …’ He held out his hand and Caroline came to stand behind his chair, taking it in her own. ‘I do feel I might have something to live for here. With your mother, if you have no objection?’
‘None,’ said Charlie faintly. ‘It’s too much to take in. I’m so sorry I thought you might have stolen the jewels, though.’
‘No matter. Nature abhors a vacuum. It is to your credit that you were so concerned about your mother’s welfare and – well – with no evidence to the contrary, and with what you saw, along with your quite natural interpretation of it …’
‘He forgives you,’ said Caroline. ‘Now, back to discussions of my grandchild in all but actual genetics.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Rufus’s house had a closed, unoccupied air but Bella wasn’t perturbed. In her mind she called it the ‘stealth’ house, because on the approach from the road it hunkered so low in the landscape, shuttered and blank on the roadside, only opening up to the views once you got beyond the front.
She pressed her thumb against the biometrics pad. No joy. She pressed again and then tried the other hand. Still nothing. It was new technology, it could be flaky sometimes. She rang the bell and then hammered hard on the door. Nothing. She knocked again and waited a bit longer.
Ears tuned, she could hear someone coming up the stairs from the bedrooms below, a light, scampering tread quite different to Rufus’s.
The door opened a crack and then was flung wide.
‘Bella!’ exclaimed Flora delightedly. She was standing barefoot with her blonde ringleted hair tousled, wearing nothing but one of Rufus’s shirts and a broad smile. ‘You missed the most amazing party, where were you? There was a magician, there was vodka jelly and we had a sing-song with Zane Stringfellow and …’ The young girl’s face fell. ‘Oh my God,’ she exclaimed, her hands clutching either side of her face. ‘I’m here and I’ve had sex with your boyfriend. Yikes, that’s really, really, really bad …’ She froze, staring at Bella in horror. ‘I’m so, so sorry Bells,’ she exclaimed, exploding into action and throwing her arms around Bella’s neck.
Bella disentangled herself gently. ‘It’s fine, actually,’ she said, as much to herself as Flora. ‘These things happen.’
Rufus, hearing voices had also now come upstairs wearing just his boxers. With his hair rumpled and with sleepy eyes he looked boy-like and vulnerable.
‘Bella,’ he said, his face returning to its usual state. Watchful. Calculating. ‘Where were you last night? You should have been there.’
‘Never mind,’ said Bella. She couldn’t tell Rufus about Dolly. Not yet. Not until she could do it with a modicum of dignity. ‘I’ve got something I need to say.’
Before he allowed her to speak, he sat her at the breakfast bar, overlooking the hills and made coffee. Bella could see the vineyard. She yearned to be there, walking up and down the rows, seeing the grapes growing heavy and full. Like her. In the adjacent fields, the ones where the festival-goers had camped, teams of litter pickers were working their way across in lines, like a police scene of crime officers searching for clues. They were mainly the workers Charlie got in for grape picking, turning up early, for the extra work. They would be harvesting soon. This year, Bella realised with sadness, she would not be there.
Rufus had put on his tracksuit and now sat opposite her, shoulders tense. ‘You’ll be wanting an explanation,’ he said, chin jutting.
Bella could hear Flora in the shower. She was singing.
‘No, actually,’ said Bella. ‘I don’t think I do. It’s not what I came for. Although, now you raise it, you’re an unlikely combination,’ she said, ‘but I think it could work really well. Just don’t …’ she paused. ‘Don’t break her, Rufus. She’s an innocent soul. Fragile.’
‘It’s just sex.’
‘Oh,’ said Bella, wryly, pulling a face. ‘I’d rather hoped you had thrown away our relationship for something a little more profound.’
‘No, sorry, I didn’t mean that … Things happened yesterday, with me and Charlie,’ Rufus went on. ‘And Zach and Ben. They’ve made me think, that’s all … I feel …’ He thought, staring into the space above Bella’s head. ‘I feel lighter,’ he said at last, spreading his palms wide. ‘You’ve been crying,’ he said, looking at her properly at last. ‘Are you going to tell me something bad?’
‘Something very, very sad has happened,’ said Bella, her chin wobbling again as she remembered the floppy weight of Dolly’s body in her lap, ‘and it’s too sad for me to talk about today, but,’ she took a breath, ‘I also have something …’ She paused, searching for the word. ‘I also have something “happy” to tell you.’
‘Bloody hell,’ he said, a minute later. ‘That definitely wasn’t the plan. How did it happen? No, never mind, that doesn’t matter now.’ He looked dazed, like he had just been punched. ‘I’ll provide financial support, obviously,’
‘Obviously,’ she echoed dryly.
‘I can’t be a father, Bella.’
‘I know.’
‘I’m too messed up. Too busy … I said I never wanted …’
‘I know.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘For what?’
‘For not being able to deal with this. For … getting you into this whole thing. For damaging you and Charlie. Especially that. It was unforgivable.’
‘What do you mean? Was it some big tactical thing of yours?’
‘Not the baby bit but, yeah,’ he admitted with a sigh. ‘I suppose it was. I think I imagined Charlie would recognise me. That we’d have a big showdown. Turns out he didn’t even know who I was, so that was the end of that little plan.’ Rufus couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. ‘I could never have forgotten him, though. I’ve kept an eye on him – and Ben and Zach – over the years … from a distance … measuring my success against theirs. Proving myself. And then I come back to show them all and they don’t even recognise me, because I’m totally insignificant all over again, just that red-headed runt from school. A distant, unimportant memory.’ He sank into a reverie and then roused himself. ‘Anyhow, back I came, and I saw him with this life, with his mates and the farm and the vineyard, and you … so effortlessly owning all the things, the life I wanted for myself.’ He stopped. Looking at her for understanding he continued. ‘And I wanted you.’
Bella blinked. ‘Did you?’
‘You’re beautiful, funny, clever … of course I did.’
‘But now?’
‘Now,’ he said, carefully, ‘I realise I wanted you at least partly because Charlie had you. And that’s not right. I’m really, really sorry … So, are you and Charlie …?’ he asked, hopefully.
Bella looked at him. His face had changed. The tough, ruthless businessman was still there, but there was something else increasingly often now. A glimpse of the boy. Someone softer and kinder.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t see how,’ she said sadly. She rested her hand on her belly. It seemed to have swollen just in the hours since she knew, expanding in relief, she supposed, at finally being recognised, her abdominal muscles giving up the fight to help her deny the reality.
‘When’s it due?’ asked Rufus, looking at her tummy as if it was an unexploded bomb.
‘Working back, I’m pretty sure we’re talking early next year. Beginning of February, most likely.’
‘Blimey, that’s only six months away. How could you have not noticed?’ said Rufus in disbelief.
Flora came scampering up the stairs. ‘Will you stay for breakfast?’ she asked Bella excitedly. ‘We’re going to make pancakes. You should stay. Rufus says he’s got maple syrup and everything.’
Bella hugged her and then she dropped a chaste kiss on Rufus’s cheek. ‘Be nice to each other,’ she said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Driving off, with no plan, she found herself parked outside The Grange, just like she had when she left Charlie months before. She stared sightlessly through the windscreen, her hands tense on the wheel and her shoulders aching and burning with the effort.
She didn’t know how long she had been sitting there when Charlie found her, but she was stiff and cold, her head pounding.
‘For God’s sake,’ said Charlie, slipping into the passenger seat. ‘I didn’t know where you were. I even called Rufus. He said you left hours ago.’
She turned her head towards him, feeling her neck creak almost audibly. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Thinking.’
‘Come home.’
After he had insisted on getting into her car and driving her back to the farmhouse, Charlie led Bella into the orchard. Dolly’s body was wrapped tightly and tidily in the blanket from her bed. It lay, looking tiny, by a freshly dug hole at the far end.
‘We need to do this,’ said Charlie gently. ‘Then we’ll talk.’
There was a mound when he had finished. A scar on the ground. It seemed inconceivable that the earth would heal, that the rain would gradually flatten the little hillock, that the grass would grow back over it. That the meadow flowers would appear again. But Bella knew it would.
‘I won’t be here,’ she sobbed. ‘I want to be here, with her, so I can come and remember her.’ She laid her hands on the earth above the dog’s body, feeling the last warmth of the summer sun in the soil, contrasting with the dank, damp air of the autumn day.
‘Stay, then,’ said Charlie, anguished. ‘Why would you not stay? We’ve got each other, we’ve got the pups, Dolly is here and now we’ve got the baby too. Is this not what you want?’
‘Of course, it is,’ Bella wailed, her composure of the last few hours finally broken again. ‘Everything is what I want and I don’t want to leave you, and Dolly, and everyone, everything … but this baby isn’t yours.’ She hung her head and sobbed.
‘Being a father isn’t about being there at the conception.’
Bella just shook her head sadly and sobbed some more.
Eventually, when she had composed herself, she tried to explain: ‘You say it’ll be okay now, but the knowledge that you are not the genetic father, it’ll always be there, admit it. If the child has problems, if it gets into trouble, when it wakes you up at night for the millionth time. You’ll feel resentful.’
‘I won’t,’ Charlie insisted. ‘It’s your baby. You’re mine so the baby’s mine. I want to look after you both.’
‘Okay, so …’ said Bella wiping her eyes and sitting up straighter. ‘How about this. I have this baby and then we go on to have another one together. Can you honestly say you won’t favour the second child? The one who is genetically yours?’
‘I won’t,’ he said, helplessly.
‘You can’t say that. You don’t know. It’s human nature …’
‘Simon called,’ said Charlie at last. ‘He’s booked you an ultrasound scan at the hospital for tomorrow. Something about anomalies and dating.’
‘I don’t need a dating scan,’ said Bella. ‘I know when it’s due.’
‘But what about the other thing?’
‘The anomaly scan,’ said Bella. ‘It’s to find out if there’s anything the matter with it.’
‘That’s important, isn’t it?’
‘Not really,’ said Bella listlessly. ‘I wouldn’t abort it. I couldn’t now anyhow, I imagine. Not with it being so far along. Can you imagine …? By three months a baby is fully formed. Fingers, toes, the whole thing … I couldn’t.’
‘You will go though, won’t you?’
‘Will you come?’
‘Of course.’
‘As a friend?’
‘Of course.’
‘I’d ask Maddy, but …’
‘You said you were sad that you and Maddy wouldn’t be going through this “mother” stuff together,’ said Charlie, cheering up slightly. ‘And now you will.’
‘Except I won’t be here.’
‘Yeah, except that …’
