The Fleeting Years Read online

  ‘It’s only me again,’ she said as Peter called for her to come in. ‘I just had a thought. That hair of yours Mrs M, it came to me that I’ve heard it said that the top man from Sebastian’s in Deremouth, that’ll be Sebastian himself – what a mouthful of a name for a chap to have, but I’ve heard it said that it’s not his name at all, he’s really plain Sam – but any road, he’s what they call a top-notch stylist, still has a successful place in London right in the posh part and only came to Deremouth because of his wife’s health. So I was just mulling it over in my mind and I thought, why don’t you have a word with him and see what he thinks he could best do to it while it gets growing. Then, I was thinking, once it’s an inch or two, he could cut all of it, shape it real nice so that it all grows together. By the time the days start to warm up you’ll be glad to have short hair. You got a real nice face, good-looking girl you always have been, short hair might look just the ticket. Just something to mull over in your mind. But it could be a wise move to speak to Sebastian rather than going straight to the local shop in Myddlesham – not that Mrs Beckham’s hair doesn’t always look nice, ’cos it does. But she’s got pretty hair and never changes the way it’s done. The local shop may not have the know-how of a top-notcher straight from London. You just think about it.’

  ‘I’ve started thinking already. Mrs Cripps, you are a honey.’

  ‘I second that,’ Peter said with a laugh as he held the door open and Mrs Cripps went to join the waiting vacuum cleaner.

  That same day Peter drove to Deremouth and talked to Sam Slade, better known as Sebastian. Being the local celebrity might have left him unspoilt and even on that visit to the ex-London stylist it didn’t enter his head that it could be because he was who he was that the hairdresser agreed to fit in a visit to Newton House that evening after the salon closed. So came another step towards Zina feeling like a human being again.

  Progress was as fast as the circumstances allowed and she was helped enormously by Peter’s never failing little surprises. Of course, with both legs in plaster she was confined to bed or, at best with a heavy shawl around her shoulders, carried to the window where she was lowered to sit on a chair by the side of the radiator, for despite the sunshine it was bitterly cold outside. There was a day soon after the hairdresser had performed a clever restyling of her cruelly cropped hair when she heard a lot of movement on the stairs. Despite asking Peter, the nurse and Mrs Cripps what was happening, they all told the same story: early spring cleaning, or to use Phyllis Cripps’s opinion, ‘Vacuuming’s all very well, but once in a while everywhere needs a proper clean, a good hard brushing, then a wash down of the woodwork. You’d be surprised at what can be got out of stairways you think are kept neat and clean day by day.’ By that evening all three of them were proved to have been telling her less than the truth.

  ‘I get fed up eating by myself,’ Peter told her. ‘Time you came down and kept me company.’

  ‘You get fed up! You think I don’t?’

  ‘Time we did something about it,’ he said with that smile of a naughty child pushing his luck as far as he could. And perhaps there was more of Jenny in her daughter than anyone had realized for Zina threw an impatient look in his direction.

  ‘Time you went down,’ she said in what he teasingly called her schoolmarm voice.

  ‘OK,’ he agreed cheerfully, at the same time throwing back the bed covers and starting to lift her.

  ‘Stop it, Peter, you idiot,’ she shouted as, carrying her, he reached one hand just far enough to twist the handle of the bedroom door then kicked it open with his foot. ‘Peter, stop fooling about. Don’t you dare try and carry me down those stairs, we’ll end up both falling. Please Peter!’ If only the nurse would come back upstairs, he might realize how stupid he was being. She buried her head against his shoulder as if that would ward off what must be going to happen.

  He could hear she was genuinely frightened and held her a little tighter, but that ‘silly smile’ was still on his face. They were on the landing, then he was lowering her.

  ‘I told you! I said I was too heavy!’ She moved her head back a little so that she could look at him – and still he was smiling, such a cocky, pleased-with-himself smile as she found herself deposited, not on the ground but onto the seat of a chairlift where he fastened the clasp of the strap that held her in. In a flash she realized what the noises she had heard had been – and he’d even had the special strap fitted because she couldn’t bend her arms sufficiently to hold on. He pushed a switch and taking her hand in his walked by her side as she was carried safely down the stairs where there was a brand-new electric wheelchair waiting. No wonder he bore the expression of a conjuror who had just successfully pulled a rabbit out of his hat.

  ‘Oh Peter, what am I going to do with you and your secrets?’ Her anger and fear had given way to shame that she hadn’t trusted him, followed immediately by a rush of love.

  ‘Well now, let me think,’ he answered, his smile teasing her, ‘you could say, “thank you dear Peter, I’m going to have fun on that” – and I bet the kids will too. Pity we didn’t have it ages ago, they’re really too old now to make the most of it. I tried it out first and made Nurse Ward have a go too,’ he chuckled as he might have done as a ten-year-old. ‘Now then, I’ll just show you how the chair works. You can drive yourself; it’s dead simple. By tomorrow you’ll be a go-anywhere kid.’

  They both knew that was an exaggeration for, plastered as she was, even getting into clothes was out of the question. But once she was downstairs and safely in the electric chair she could move about without help, and she could sit in it at the dining table. In her excitement she overlooked that she couldn’t bend her arms enough to use a knife and fork and would still have to be fed. But independence was brought a huge step nearer.

  Since her accident the housekeeping had been taken over by Edith Hume who previously had come to cook for their not-very-frequent dinner parties, or often during school holiday times so that days out never ended with Zina having a meal to prepare. Peter had called at her house the day before Zina was allowed home from hospital and she had agreed to work full time for the present. She’d always enjoyed coming to Newton House and had been pleased to be able to tell her friends how well she got on with Peter Marchand and his family. Her husband worked at a neighbouring farm where they lived in one of the cottages and she was glad to earn the extra money. Mentally she gave herself a pat on the back that she had pleased them well enough that Peter had turned to her in this emergency.

  To Peter’s surprise, Zina raised no objections when he told her that Fiona had been offered a small role in a film and, since she would be waiting out there until he returned for any final retakes, he thought it would be unkind not to agree to her accepting. Remembering the child’s excitement at the prospect of their moving to America, and imagining what her own reaction would be to the suggestion of a protégée performance for Tommy, she backed Peter’s opinion and he wrote giving his consent.

  At Newton House a new pattern evolved. When Peter could no longer put off his return to the States where there were one or two scenes to be re-shot, he was able to leave knowing that the routine was working well.

  It was a warmer than normal late May day when the taxi brought him home and across the front grass, using both feet but still with the support of crutches to take her weight, Zina came to meet him. One look at him and she knew how pleased he was with her progress, making her even more eager to tell him that the nurses were no longer in residence. She stood straight and threw down her crutches, her thin legs taking her weight as she held her arms towards him. Held in his close embrace she felt she had her life back again. The driver unloaded Peter’s bags and with a shrug of his shoulders climbed back behind the wheel and drove off feeling himself to be invisible to both his fare and the woman too. Good job he’d been paid up front before they left the airport – paid and generously tipped too.

  ‘Stand back and let me look at you.’ Peter pulled ba
ck a few inches the better to see her. ‘God, Zee, but you look good. Two arms, two legs—’

  ‘All complete. A bit scraggy.’ As if to demonstrate just how scraggy, she held out her arms for inspection.

  ‘What’s the old saying about the nearer the bone the sweeter the meat? Zina, Zee, I’ve missed you so much. You always said you were fine, but I know what you are and I was worried.’

  Suddenly she moved away from him and turned to where the taxi had been.

  ‘Peter, what sort of a mother am I for heaven’s sake? I saw you and that’s all I thought about. Fiona must have gone straight indoors. I feel awful.’

  ‘Ah!’ He hadn’t looked forward to this moment. ‘I let her stay on out there for a bit longer. There wasn’t time to talk about it to you. I’d intended to collect her on the way to the airport and there was an accident – oh, not with the cab I was in—’ when he saw her expression, ‘but it held us up and I knew I’d just have to collect her with no time to spare. When I got to the house she was full of excitement. She’s been offered another film, not a cameo part but the juvenile lead. Hermann was wild with praises and the kid just begged and pleaded I wouldn’t make her come home. When the shooting is done she’ll come back, but it’s a few months that might give her an opportunity she’ll never find again. I tell you, Zee, that kid has a rare talent; we can’t, we mustn’t, let her down.’

  ‘She’s only fourteen, she ought to be at school still. Do you want her to grow up thinking the world begins and ends with some sort of make-believe, her face plastered with grease paint?’

  His eyes teased her as he said, ‘A good thing I have a hide like a rhinoceros. Hermann has promised to make arrangements for private tuition for her; it happens all the time for kids who work on films. I honestly do agree, she is far too young to abandon her lessons and she needs the discipline of learning. We handed her over to a boarding school here without querying their methods, so let’s trust him.’

  ‘You’re a softie, Peter Marchand. I can’t think why I love you like I do.’

  ‘Must be my natural charm,’ he replied, drawing her closer, ‘you haven’t a chance against it.’

  ‘That’s good,’ she replied, ‘life would be so dull if you lost your fatal fascination.’

  He went to pick up her crutches. ‘Do you need these or can you trust yourself just to me.’

  ‘You or a couple of wooden props? There’s no contest.’ So with one arm round her and the crutches tucked under his other, they walked back to the house where neither of them were surprised to find Mrs Cripps had had ‘one or two last minute jobs’ she’d wanted to see to rather than go home on time.

  ‘It’s that nice to see you come home,’ she greeted Peter, ‘now we’ll all be in good step again, eh Mrs M? Where’s our little Fiona, has she gone straight up to her room without saying hello?’ When they explained, she shook her head in disbelief. ‘Bless my soul, that little mite she was not so long ago and now – well, beggars belief, that it does. Gets her talent from her dad, I suppose. Was looking forward to seeing her. Al’ays she would come and chat with me, used to sit wherever I was, happy as a sandboy while we chatted.’ Hearing her, into Peter’s mind sprang the image of Fiona sitting in the car with him as he drove her for the first time to boarding school. That had been the day he had felt certain of the career she had ahead of her.

  ‘She’ll soon be home, Mrs Cripps.’ Zina made herself sound positive. But she knew you could never turn back time and find things as they used to be. Every experience leaves its mark and for Fiona this one would leave a mark both deep and indelible.

  That evening they were in the drawing room when they heard the telephone. Peter went to answer it and she couldn’t hear his words, nor even his tone, so it wasn’t until he came back into the room that she was sure from his expression that something was wrong.

  Eight

  ‘That was Tom.’ And she sensed from his voice that he was angry.

  ‘Is he OK? You had a long talk. Had he reversed the charge?’ Zina asked with an affectionate laugh.

  Not answering her directly, Peter went to the cabinet and started to pour their drinks. ‘The usual, I take it?’ Then passing her a glass, he answered, ‘No, he’d been saving his money ready for a long call. You ask if he is OK. Yes, it’s plain he’s in his element there. In fact it wasn’t either of us he wanted to speak with; he called expecting to talk to Fiona.’

  ‘Poor Tom. Do all twins have their sort of bond, I wonder? We ought to give him more loose money for his calls so that he can speak to her sometimes.’ Peter didn’t reply and she could see his thoughts weren’t on what she had said. ‘Are you sure nothing was wrong? If there is something, please Peter I want to know.’

  ‘Young Fiona needs her bottom smacked, that’s what’s wrong. She’s so over the moon with her own affairs – and I can understand that, of course she is – but she ought to think of someone else besides herself occasionally, especially she ought to think of Tom. The kid was upset. I suspect he was fighting tears. He phoned wanting a long talk with her and then found she wasn’t here; so that was a let down. And I expect that’s what brought him low enough to tell me the rest. Do you know, in all these months she’d been out there she has only written to him once and that was in the first week or so. Poor chap, he gets no replies to his letters to her. He asked me to confirm her address because he thought he must be sending them to the wrong place.’

  ‘And …?’

  ‘Oh, he sends to the right place, she’s just so wrapped up in herself … Honestly Zina, she’s got to behave better or we must insist she comes home. He begged me not to mention it to her, that’s what really upset me. He knows, and we both know too, she’s tough and she’s always been able to turn things to her own advantage. Unfortunately from his point of view, Tom isn’t as hard as she is. He knows it and I suspect if he thought we got on to her about it and said she was to write, it would take all the joy out of hearing from her. How often did she write to you while I’ve been back in the States this last time? Does she answer your letters?’

  ‘When I think about it, she hasn’t written at all. But I knew she was all right because you always told me.’

  She could tell that Peter was angry by the way he put his glass on the occasional table in front of them and drummed his fingers against his knee.

  ‘I’m going to phone her,’ he said, getting up and going towards the door as he spoke.

  ‘No, Peter, please don’t. Tom would be mortified.’

  ‘He would indeed, but you are made of sterner stuff. I shall tell her what I think of her for not writing to you and then, casually, say I suppose she sends regularly to Tom but she also has a duty to write home. Trust me, I won’t drop Tom into it. She’s got to understand that affection is a two-way thing, she can’t expect folk to give it to her if she is too lazy and selfish to care about them.’

  This time he was gone even longer than the first. Somehow a cloud had been cast on the evening. Zina knew that his anger was based on his own feeling of hurt that Fiona, who had always had such a special relationship with him, could have behaved like it. By the time he came back it was his turn to look miserable.

  ‘I guess I laid into her more heavily than I needed to, but Zee, we have to teach her, don’t we? She said to tell you she thinks about you all the time—’

  ‘Never mind about me, I think perhaps the female of the species is tougher than the male over some things. What did she say about Tommy?’

  ‘She cried. I made her cry. I feel such a heel.’

  ‘No darling, not a heel. A good parent – and it’s not easy at this distance.’

  After a moment Peter’s mouth twitched into what was almost a smile. ‘She threw the phone onto the desk, I heard it, and I heard how she stamped off, it sounded as though she banged her feet on the stairs and then a door slammed. The exit of a drama queen. Hermann could hear there was trouble and, ever a peacemaker, he came on the line. I told him what it was all about and he sa
id—’ and at this Peter took on the voice of the German-born American citizen – ‘“Gee man, what do we guys do with these women? Don’t you worry, the fair Fiona is in kind hands. I will give her ten minutes to come to terms with the error of her ways and if she’s not down the stairs by then with a smile on her face, Heila will go and have a nice quiet talk with her. She’s a great kid. OK man, a bit full of her own importance at the moment, of course she is, but there’s not a selfish streak in her true character. You and your good lady put it right out of your heads and I give you my word in half an hour she will be a happy bunny again and before she goes to bed tonight there will be two letters in the mail box.”’

  Peter tipped back the remains of his drink and put his glass down. ‘An early night for us tonight, Zina?’ he suggested in a voice she found hard to resist. ‘Back in my own bed.’ Then holding both her hands in his, he asked, ‘Have you missed me as much as I’ve missed you?’

  ‘Your bed?’ she answered with a soft laugh, ‘our bed. And yes, I’ve missed you every night and every day. We have so much time to make up. But Peter, let’s wait a bit before we go up. Pour us another drink and put some music on for a while.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘That doesn’t sound like the lady I’ve been dreaming of.’

  ‘Tonight is so special. Do you know how long it is since we were together?’

  ‘Together in bed? I know exactly how long. I went to the States in the middle of August leaving you with two good arms and legs, and here we are with another summer on us. Isn’t that long enough for us to have to wait?’ There was a teasing note in his voice even though he did as she suggested and the room was filled with the sound of a Viennese waltz. His idea of music was very different from hers, but the soft background of the lilting waltz was a bridge between the two.