Chapter 50
50
GEMMA
It wasn’t until I’d got home, had a quick shower, dressed and tried to make myself look half-normal, that I thought to put the spare duvet and pillow away from the end of the sofa. I was chucking them in the cupboard, telling myself they wouldn’t come out again – not for Crystal, not ever – when I realised, underneath them, she’d left behind the yellow shirt she’d worn the previous evening, plus the matching yellow scarf she’d tied her hair up with, and some underwear. I decided I’d take them back to her at work, stuffed them in a carrier bag and put it out of the way in my bedroom.
‘Nanny here!’ Poppy shouted; she’d been standing on the sofa in her socks, looking out of the window for Mum’s car. Then, ‘Oh, Gandad here too!’
‘Really?’ I went to the front door and let them in. ‘Hello! Dad – I didn’t know you were coming back down again – Mum didn’t say.’
‘I haven’t been back to Manchester since Christmas,’ he said, smiling. ‘I decided to take some time off and stay here for New Year.’
‘Oh!’ I looked from him to Mum, surprised she hadn’t mentioned it, but Mum just smiled and said, yes, he’d actually gone with her to her friend’s party the previous night.
‘Did you have a nice evening?’ she added. ‘Or were you just on your own?’
I turned away, heading back to the kitchen.
‘Crystal came round,’ I said bluntly. I nodded in Poppy’s direction and added half under my breath, ‘I’ll tell you later.’
I started getting lunch ready – I’d realised I was hungry; I hadn’t had any breakfast. Mum came out to help me, giving me another look and asking me to tell her what had happened, but I just shook my head. I had to eat first; combined with the stress of the morning, I felt like the hunger was threatening to make me faint. Over lunch, Mum and Dad must have exchanged worried glances with each other at least twenty times, but fortunately Poppy was keeping us all entertained with her attempts to show off her new progress at counting to twelve. She’d already achieved one to ten by her birthday, occasionally muddling up six and seven, and had asked to go higher recently but she was now muddling seven with eleven. Mum and Dad pretended to be overcome with awe at her talent and kept encouraging her until she finally got it right.
When we’d finished eating, Dad offered to help me with the clearing up, while Mum took Poppy into the living room to play a game.
‘Now then,’ he said as soon as the door was closed behind us. ‘Tell me what happened. You look absolutely drained.’
‘I feel it,’ I admitted, accepting Dad’s offer to load the dishwasher while I sat down again.
‘You didn’t have a good evening?’
‘Oh, last night was fine. It was this morning?—’
I told him the whole story: how I’d woken up late, to find both Poppy and Crystal gone, her car gone, how I’d got no response when I tried to call her, and was on the point of calling the police.
‘I suppose I panicked,’ I admitted. ‘I honestly thought the worst.’
‘Well, I’m not surprised!’ he exclaimed. ‘Anybody would have done. What the hell did she think she was doing – taking her off like that without even asking you?’
‘She’d put a note under my bedroom door but I didn’t even notice it. But the point is?—’
‘The point is,’ Dad interrupted, ‘Poppy is not her child, and she can’t be allowed to behave as if she is. No wonder you panicked. I don’t trust her. I’m sorry to say it, without even having met her, but I really do wonder if she’s trying to take Poppy away from you. It’s all very well feeling sorry for her because she doesn’t have children herself, but?—’
‘Well, that’s the other thing. It’s not even true: she does have a daughter. But she’s in foster care.’
Dad’s eyes widened. ‘How did you find that out?’
‘Oh, she told me – but only last week. She finds it hard to talk about, and she won’t tell me why she’s being fostered. Anyway, that’s where she goes when she’s away for weekends: to see her daughter. Evie.’
‘So why the big secret? Why lie to you and say she didn’t have any kids? And why is she still not telling you the reason the daughter’s being fostered?’
‘I don’t know, Dad. But anyway, it’s all irrelevant now. I don’t feel like I even want to see her again, and I definitely don’t want her hanging around Poppy any more – let alone going anywhere with her on her own.’
‘Well, I can’t say I’m sorry.’ He sighed, and added, ‘I know you enjoyed her friendship, Gem, but frankly your mum and I have both been worried about it.’
‘I know. I was getting worried myself, but when she told me about Evie, I… felt so sorry for her, I kind of relented again.’
‘But enough is enough.’
‘Yes.’ I nodded. ‘Enough is enough.’
I got up and put the kettle on while Dad finished the clearing up, and when we took the coffee through to the living room, Mum was cuddled up on the sofa with Poppy, reading her a story.
‘She looks tired,’ Mum commented.
‘Yes. She was up early this morning.’
‘’Cos I went out with Crystal and I had a muffin!’ Poppy squawked, suddenly coming to life. ‘We went to ’Donald’s!’
Mum gave me an enquiring look, and Dad touched her arm.
‘I’ll fill you in later,’ he promised. Then he looked back at me. ‘Meanwhile, I have some news.’
‘Oh?’ I looked at him a little anxiously, my mind immediately jumping to Jack – the private detective. What else had he discovered? I didn’t think I could take any more shocks today.
‘It’s good news,’ he said. ‘I’ll be around more, soon, to help out whenever you need it, love. I’m moving back down south.’
‘What?’ I stared at him. ‘How? Your job?—’
‘I’m working my notice. I told you, didn’t I? That I’m working part-time now, from home, and that I was going to retire? Don’t look at me like that!’ He laughed. ‘Don’t you think I deserve to? I’m seventy next birthday!’
‘But, Dad, this is all so sudden. I mean, it was only a couple of weeks ago when you first mentioned you might retire. I didn’t think you meant immediately! I thought you loved your job. I thought you always said you’d be bored if you retired.’ I paused, hesitated, then added anxiously, ‘Are you sure it’s not your health or anything like that?’
‘No, of course it isn’t. Look at me, I’m as strong as an ox and as fit as a fiddle.’
‘But… moving back down here? What about your golf club, all the friends you’ve made in Manchester?—’
He smiled. ‘None of them are important. Not as important as what I’ve now realised I miss the most: my daughter, my granddaughter?—’
‘No, Dad.’ I felt annoyed now. ‘You can’t do this, it isn’t right. I mean, I’m grateful for what you’ve done for us, that goes without saying. But you can’t give up everything else in your life just for me and Poppy, just because you’ve been worried about us. I’m not a child, I can cope, I can manage the situation with’ – I paused, glancing at Poppy, who looked close to dozing off on the sofa – ‘with You Know Who . I don’t need you giving up your life to take care of me.’
‘I know you don’t,’ he said calmly, still smiling. ‘However much I want to help, I love the fact that you’re independent, that you’re coping so well and dealing with… problems… your own way. But you didn’t let me finish. It isn’t only for you and Poppy that I want to come back. It’s for your mum.’
‘Mum?’ I repeated, staring from one of them to the other. ‘What… what’s wrong, Mum? Are you ill? Why do you need Dad’s help?’
‘For heaven’s sake, Gemma, must you always think the worst?’ she exclaimed. ‘Stop catastrophising and let us explain.’
She looked at Dad, and they were both smiling now.
‘So… what?’ I said again. ‘Why?’
‘Can’t you guess?’ she said. ‘We’re getting back together, darling. We’ve been talking about it all year.’
‘We’ve realised we should never have broken up,’ Dad said, taking hold of Mum’s hand and looking at her with what looked almost like adoration in his eyes. ‘The divorce was a mistake. A stupid mistake. There was nothing wrong with our marriage.’
I could feel my mouth opening and closing like a fish’s.
‘So why did you break up, if there was nothing wrong in the first place?’ I asked. ‘I’ve always wondered, to be honest. I mean, you still seem to be… like good friends.’
Mum laughed. ‘Yes, we are! That’s the whole point. I don’t know why we split, Gem. Perhaps we both thought there must have been something missing – something we couldn’t even identify until we’d gone away from each other and looked for it.’
‘That’s exactly right,’ Dad agreed. ‘And I think I’m right in saying that neither of us found it.’
‘Because it was just where we left it – with each other,’ Mum agreed, ‘and with you and Poppy.’
To be honest if they’d sat there looking at each other with that dopey look in their eyes for a single moment longer, I might have started to feel sick, but I didn’t let it get that far. I jumped up, rushed to hug both of them, and before I realised it, there were tears pouring down my face – tears of happiness. So perhaps I wasn’t as cynical as I’d thought!
‘Mummy crying?’ Poppy asked anxiously.
‘No, sweetheart. I’ve just got something in my eyes. No, honestly, I’m really happy,’ I said, including her in the group hug.
‘Good!’ she said, wriggling free to pick up her book. ‘ I’m happy too ’cos you said we could play another game.’
‘So I did!’
I had to laugh. Now that her speech was coming on in leaps and bounds, she often had a lovely way of expressing what she wanted – or what she wanted me to do.
‘All right, go and get the game you want us to play. And meanwhile,’ I added to Mum and Dad as she ran off to her toy cupboard, ‘I think this news needs to be celebrated with a toast of some sort.’
‘I’m driving,’ Mum said. ‘But if you want?—’
‘Let’s just toast each other with this coffee,’ Dad suggested, ‘before it gets cold.’
‘Oh – I’d forgotten about the coffee,’ I said, sitting down and passing them both a mug from the tray. ‘OK, well, cheers! Here’s to the pair of you being… reunited.’ I paused and added, ‘Are you talking about getting remarried?’
‘Probably no point,’ Mum said, grinning. ‘Makes no difference, really, does it, at our age. I mean, we’re hardly likely to have any more children.’
‘So we might as well keep our options open in case we decide to split up again,’ Dad added with a wink, nudging Mum so she nearly spilled her coffee, and they both started giggling like a pair of teenagers.
I shook my head in amazement. Who’d have thought it? They seemed to have fallen in love with each other all over again. Could that actually happen at their age? Well, I supposed it could.
We didn’t talk about Crystal any more that day. I was glad; I needed a break, to stop thinking about her and worrying about her for just one afternoon. I wanted to be happy, and enjoy my family, and pretend she didn’t matter. But I knew it could only be a break. I’d have to decide, sooner or later, how to deal with this situation, once and for all, because this morning had decided it for me: Crystal had to be excised from Poppy’s life, however difficult that might be.