The Healing Stream Page 25

  ‘Julian?’ The sight of him confused her. She had expected to face whatever had to be faced alone. Instead, as her face crumpled she felt herself taken into his strong embrace. ‘He was coming home. Nothing now.’ Her courage had deserted her. With Julian there she felt weak and helpless.

  ‘I know, my dear.’

  ‘Told you I was all right, I knew the way. You shouldn’t have bothered,’ she gulped.

  ‘I’m a stubborn old fool, I dare say, but I wanted to find out for myself how things were. When they told me, I waited. We’ll leave your car here tonight; I shall drive you home.’

  She didn’t argue, and later she didn’t remember much of the rest of the evening. There were things to see to at the hospital, but Julian took control. She was like a wind-up toy with a broken spring.

  Epilogue

  1963

  Millie’s sixth birthday was on a Saturday and she was having a party. Maria was in her element. The birthday cake was thick with chocolate and bedecked with six candles, there were bunches of balloons hanging from the ceiling and, for the occasion, her brother-in-law had been engaged to come with his concertina to make music so that the children could play the games Tessa had taught her: Musical Chairs, Pass the Parcel, Oranges and Lemons, games played at children’s parties in every town and village of England. It was a celebration of the fact that although Millie appeared as Spanish as anyone in her class at school, she had roots in the country of her parents.

  While the games were going on in the house, overseen by Maria who was as noisy and excited as any of the children, the grown ups were outside in the sunshine. It was early March but the sun was warm and the sky cloudless.

  ‘The loveliest time of year here,’ Naomi said, passing her cup for a refill. ‘Blue sky above and a sea of blossom wherever you look. Garden flowers are beautiful, but there is something wonderful about blossom, almonds, olives, oranges, lemons or, back at home, apples, plums, all the things we grew up with. The trees are so full of promise.’

  ‘This year there have been no big winds to blow the flowers from the trees,’ Timus said. ‘There will be many nuts. Now we are here together, my Deirdre and I have some news for you. You tell it, Deirdre.’

  ‘I bet you’ve all guessed it after an introduction like that. I’m preggie. You’re going to have another grandchild by the beginning of October, Dad.’

  ‘Wonderful.’ Julian gazed at her with pride. ‘Does that mean you will be looking for a house by yourselves?’ That was his one concern, for how would she manage?

  ‘Heavens, no,’ Deirdre said, laughing at the thought. ‘At home they’re thrilled to bits. You’ve no idea how great it is; extra babies just make it even better somehow.’

  No one mentioned her disability. Even though it was at the front of Julian and Naomi’s minds, clearly it didn’t cast a shadow for either Timus or his happy wife, who was leaning from her chair to pass a rubber dog back into the playpen where fourteen-month-old Nina was standing by the rail ready to throw it out again.

  Tessa and Naomi let their glances meet briefly. Thankfulness for the way Deirdre’s life had changed was part of it. Certainly at that moment their thoughts were moving on the same line as they remembered those few intimate minutes by the mountain stream. How far Deirdre had come since the days of her resentment and angry misery; the Pooh stick of her life had broken free and gone tumbling on downstream. Looking at Tessa, Naomi wondered whether hers had been washed on its way. Since Giles died they had never talked as they had on the morning by the stream. Tessa worked hard. She gave every impression of finding contentment and satisfaction in her work with the almond trees; certainly she seemed to have an inner happiness which had been missing while Giles was in America. But she was young; she had years of living ahead of her. Would she find love again? Not the same love as the first time . . . and here Naomi’s own thoughts strayed into the past and the undying love she and Richard shared.

  Tessa’s memory, too, was on that morning when they had thrown their twigs from the bridge and watched them flow downstream. That had been the morning she and Giles had talked on the telephone, the morning when her world had come alive again. So where was her twig of life now? Work had had to be her salvation. She had found a sense of peace that stemmed from more than pleasure in her growing success. He had never stopped loving her . . . he had been coming home to her. That year and a half when they had been separated had been joyless and hopeless. Now, even though she would never see him again, that love was always with her; whatever life threw at her, nothing could change that. What was it Naomi had said about memories never fading, and love becoming more deeply part of you? She’d remembered that morning so often over the last year; it had helped her through the anguish of grief and set her on the path to living the years ahead. There was nothing macabre in her keeping his study just as he left it. For her it wasn’t a shrine; it was a place to escape to when she was alone downstairs and Millie was asleep. Sitting at the typewriter she could almost feel his hands on her shoulders. When he was in America, in her misery she used to sit there, imagining him standing behind her in just the same way. Then there had been no comfort in the image she created. But now she knew the truth, nothing could take from her the love he had for her; it was like a warm blanket protecting her from the cold winds of life. Rejoice! She smiled at the thought. Rejoice sounded like merrymaking – like the noise of the children singing with Maria’s brother-in-law and his concertina. But for her it encompassed something far deeper: it encompassed the joy that he had given back to her when he told her the truth about his going away; it encompassed memories of everything they had shared.