Chapter 41
41
Cate had an hour to kill. She’d caught the waterbus far too early, terrified of messing up and being late but also yearning for time to sit by herself amongst the trees and flowers, safe in the knowledge that Nat was keeping a careful eye on Phil over at the squero .
She entered the little park on Mazzorbo, heading for the same bright-red bench she and Nat had sat on just days before. So much had happened since the two of them had strolled through here on their way to Burano. She cringed at the memory of visiting the house where she’d believed her mother lived, her foot in the door, the way she’d almost barged her way upstairs into a stranger’s bedroom. Now she was going back to Burano by invitation, but still her emotions whirled like chunks of fruit in a blender. Phil’s revelations, Natalie’s relief that her attacker was no longer free to prey on others – yesterday was a day she’d never forget.
Of course, Cate hadn’t shared Phil’s own story; she’d only told Natalie about the prowling school pervert and his downfall. It was up to her husband to decide when – if ever – and with whom he wanted to share the episodes that had caused him such anguish. How thankful she was that she’d never shared Nat’s suspicions that Phil had been her attacker. How Phil would have reacted was anyone’s guess but the possibility that she might have irreparably damaged their marriage didn’t bear thinking about.
Cate checked her phone. Again. Her new half-sister, Belinda, had promised to confirm the name of the café where her mum, Lina, would be waiting. Her own mother! But did Cate really want to hear her mum’s excuses for staying away all these years? Wouldn’t it be better to let the past lie? Dealing with her husband’s anxiety about seeing Raj – who’d surprisingly messaged Phil straight back agreeing to meet – should be her priority, not chasing foolish dreams.
Cate sighed. She’d been wrong to come. She should go back to the waterbus, back to the man who loved and needed her, not sit here waiting for the woman who’d upped and left.
She picked up her bag. Her phone beeped. A message from an Italian number. It was Belinda.
We are early, Mamma was too excited to wait. La Ciambella on Piazza Baldassarre Galuppi.
Her heart leapt. Despite her cool logic, Cate knew she couldn’t just turn around and go. Not now. Maybe it was wrong to try and second-guess the reasons her mum had stayed away. She typed quickly, her message brief and to the point. She wasn’t ready to share her emotions yet.
I am early too. See you very soon.
She clicked send before she could change her mind. A message pinged through straight away but it wasn’t a reply from Belinda. The message was from The Evergreens, asking her to contact them. Cate frowned. Dad had been fine when she’d checked last night. It couldn’t be anything urgent; they would have called if it was. Anyhow, she couldn’t stop and deal with it now; she’d be on the phone forever with chatty Sally on reception. Dad had kept her and Mum apart before. He wasn’t going to do it again.
She stowed her phone in her bag and set off in the direction of the little bridge that led to Burano.
* * *
Cate had no memory of being with her mum, but she knew, even before Lina rose from her seat, that this slim, dark-haired woman was her mother, her own flesh and blood. Cate pushed her sunglasses up into her hair, wanting nothing, not even a layer of tinted glass, to come between them in this precious moment.
‘Cathy, oh, Cathy!’ Her mum clung to her, rocking her slightly from side to side as if she was still the baby she’d once soothed in her arms. Cate allowed herself to be held, feeling her toned arms and strong shoulders collapse against Lina’s angular body like a half-baked souffle.
Eventually, Lina let go. She lifted Cate’s hair away from her face. ‘You are so beautiful – and blonde now too.’
‘A good hairdresser.’
‘Every woman’s secret weapon,’ the young woman standing alongside Lina said. ‘I am so pleased to meet you, Cathy. I have always wondered about you. Che bello ! How beautiful it is that we meet.’ She swiped tears from her eyes.
‘My daughter, Belinda,’ Lina added. The two younger women embraced. ‘Please sit down. Let us have some coffee together.’
Cate sat. Belinda ordered the coffee, smiling broadly as if to reassure the waiter who was looking a little alarmed by the sight of three weeping women.
For a while, none of them spoke. Cate gazed at Lina, searching for traces of her own features in her mother’s face.
‘I am sorry, I cannot help crying like this.’ Lina sniffed. ‘I have dreamt of this day for many years. Every year on your birthday, I have made a wish that you would come and find me.’
You could have come and found me , Cate wanted to say, but this wasn’t the time for recriminations. She fiddled with the handle on the espresso cup the waiter had quietly set before her.
‘I am so pleased to meet you,’ Belinda said again.
Cate squirmed on her metal chair, not knowing where to begin.
Lina flicked her hand towards her untouched coffee cup. ‘I do not know what we are doing here, amongst all these tourists! We must welcome you to our home.’
‘You are right, you must come to the house.’ Belinda peeled a note from her purse and wedged it under the sugar bowl.
‘Thank you, that’s very kind.’ Cate said, getting up. She was glad to escape the curious looks from the family at the adjoining table. She pushed down her sunglasses and let her new half-sister link arms as they walked the short distance to the little square where her mother lived.
The marmalade cat she’d seen by the orange house was lying on the doorstep. Belinda scooped it up under one arm as her mother unlocked their front door.
‘Tigre is our cat, though he likes to spend more time on our neighbours’ doorsteps. I think other people feed him, although they say they do not. Please, come in. We will sit out on our balcony.’
Cate stepped into a narrow hallway, taking in its pale-pink walls, the samples of old, handmade lace framed and mounted on the wall.
‘I will make the coffee,’ Lina said, disappearing through a door at the end.
Cate waited in the hallway with Belinda. A folding umbrella and some unopened post lay on a half-moon table, watched over by several family photographs. An image of a girl in a bunny-eared hat feeding a baby lamb made her catch her breath.
‘This is me… when we went to Wales. I must have been three or four.’
‘Your papà sent Mamma a photograph every year. Most of them are in an album in our living room. I loved to look at them when I was a little girl, hoping you looked a bit like me. Come, let us go and sit outside.’
Cate followed her half-sister up the stairs and out onto the balcony, sinking into a green cushioned swing chair under a shady awning. She hardly dared to believe what she’d heard and seen. Her mum had kept and treasured Cate’s photos; she’d yearned to see her daughter again. And her half-sister had known about Cate all along and dreamt of meeting her. How could Dad have let her go on that school trip to Venice, not telling her that the mother who loved her was living here?
‘I still cannot believe you are really here!’ Lina put down a tray laden with a metal coffee pot, cups, tea plates and an oval tin of Amaretti biscuits decorated with a whirly pattern of gold and pink. She perched on the edge of her chair, struggling to open the lid with her beautifully manicured hands.
‘Let me. Your nails are too long.’ Belinda prised open the lid, releasing a sweet, sugary scent. ‘Please, take one.’
‘Thank you.’ Cate took one of the paper-wrapped biscuits. Lina poured out the coffee, holding the pot steady with both hands. Belinda threw back her drink in a couple of gulps and then stood up.
‘Mamma, I think I will leave you two alone. Cathy and I have so much to catch up on… but you have so much you must want to say to each other.’ Her sugar-almond-scented hair brushed against Cate’s cheek as she bent to kiss her.
‘Thank you, that’s kind of you,’ Cate said.
Lina stirred her coffee, even though she’d already added a sachet of sugar and stirred it just moments before. Cate undid the white wrapper on her biscuit even though she wasn’t sure she could eat a thing.
‘I saw the photograph in the hallway of me feeding the lambs.’
‘Every year, Terry – your dad – sent one to me. This is the only one I have on display. It would make me sad to have too many pictures of you around the house.’
‘Why did you leave?’ Cate blurted it out. ‘When I had my own children, I understood how strong a mother’s love was. I couldn’t imagine any circumstances where I would abandon my boys. It was Dad, wasn’t it? Was he mean to you? Is that why you had to go?’
Lina fiddled with a stray strand of hair, taking a moment to compose herself. She licked her lips, swallowed and continued.
‘No. I cannot blame Terry. He was always a good man, just a boy back then. I was so young when I fell pregnant: just a teenager. I was too scared to have a baby, too scared to have an abortion, too scared to go back home and disappoint my parents again. Terry surprised me; after the initial shock, he was thrilled to become a dad. I told myself everything would be all right. I even began to get excited and by the time I was five or six months gone, I knew I was willing to put my dreams of doing more travelling aside. I started to dream instead of a happy little family.
‘I should have felt elated when the nurse handed you to me in the hospital but I just felt numb. She told me it was the exhaustion of the birth and I shouldn’t worry. When I took you home, I struggled to breastfeed. I could not sleep. I would wake in the night to check on you, worrying about every little thing that could go wrong.’
Lina paused. She leant forward, resting her hands on the wrought-iron table, but that didn’t stop them from shaking.
‘I became convinced I was a bad mother, that one day, I would harm you. I began to imagine hurting you. I had visions of standing over your cot, holding a pillow and smothering you.’
Cate gasped, hardly able to take in what she was hearing.
‘One day, I imagined feeding you from a bottle, putting bleach or some other poison in the milk. I could not tell anyone the truth; I believed they would take you away from me. But I knew you could not have a mother like me; you were not safe when I was around. You do not know how close I came to harming you.
‘I could not tell Terry why I had to leave,’ Lina continued, her voice so soft, Cate had to lean forward to catch her words. ‘I did not want him to think I was a monster. It was easier for me to let him think I was selfish and uncaring, that I did not want to be tied down. Part of me hoped that once I’d left England, I could lose myself in travel, new places, new people, that somehow I could move on, but of course it does not work like that. It was many years later, when I was listening to a radio show, that I discovered I was not the only mother who had felt that way. I realised I must have been suffering from post-natal depression. I had not been mad or bad. I had been ill. It was such a relief to find a reason but so sad that I had not known to get help. When I was pregnant with Belinda, I spoke to the doctors so they could help me if it happened again.’
‘Oh, Lina… Mum. It’s terrible to think you suffered that way. I know how hard bringing up a baby can be. I was twenty-four when I had Oli and I still felt like a child parenting a child even then. And after him, we had Max and he didn’t sleep. I still remember the struggles of being up half the night. I can’t imagine dealing with that as a teenager and suffering from post-natal depression on top of it all.’
‘I thought of telling Terry the truth once I realised what had been wrong with me. But it was too late and I knew he would blame himself for not being aware of how badly I was coping. I could see from the photographs he sent every year that you were happy, settled and you could not have had a better dad.’
‘Dad kept me from you.’
Lina shook her head. ‘No, that is not true.’
‘I came to Venice, on a school trip, when I was fourteen. He never told me you were here. We could have met. You would have wanted to see me, wouldn’t you?’
Lina turned her face away. ‘Terry wanted to tell you, he wanted me to meet you, but I refused.’
‘You didn’t want to see me?’ Cate’s voice cracked.
‘I wanted to see you, to hold you, with all my heart.’ Lina’s voice shook; she dabbed her eyes. ‘But I told myself I did not deserve you. I could not come back into your life and turn everything upside down. I remembered my own teenage years: how difficult they were. But when Terry sent me a copy of the school’s itinerary for your trip, I kept looking at it, imagining each day what you were doing, what you would think of the places you saw. I waited and waited for days until I could no longer stay away.
‘The day you went to the Galleria Accademia, I waited in the Campo della Carità by the postcard seller’s stand all morning. And then I saw a straggle of girls walking over the bridge. One girl was singing loudly, pretending to be Madonna. I hoped so much that it was your school. I went nearer, standing right by the foot of the bridge. It was not hard to pick you out. Oh, you cannot imagine the emotions I felt. I cannot even describe them. Love, pride, fear all rolled into one. How I wanted to rush up to you but you looked so happy, so carefree, I just stood and watched, telling myself it was better that way. I forced myself to walk away. For the rest of the day, I could think of nothing but you wandering around the gallery, imagining you exploring each room, wondering which painting would be your favourite.
‘On your next birthday, your dad did not send a photograph. He never sent me any more. It was as though by not seeing you, I had made my choice – and I was too proud to contact him again. I met my husband, Belinda’s papà, a few years later. He urged me to get back in touch with Terry. He told me I would regret it if I didn’t. I said that you could choose to find me when you were older. I could not bear to try. I could not face the thought that you might reject me. I believed deep down, it was what I deserved. And in any case, you were always here.’ She rested her palm against her heart.
Cate gulped. ‘Why didn’t Dad tell me? He let me believe it was his decision to keep us apart.’ How could he have silently accepted the injustice of her sulks and strops, the way she’d grown away from him?
‘Your dad loved you – loves you, Cathy. He was determined to protect you in every way. He did not want to destroy whatever idealised picture you had of me. He loved you so much, he would rather take the blame himself. He could not bear you to experience the hurt and pain of knowing your own mother had chosen to stay away.’
Cate grasped her mother’s hand. ‘Oh, Mum! You had your reasons.’
‘No reason is good enough, I see that now. I do not expect you to forgive me. I will understand if you go away and never want to see me again.’
‘Of course I forgive you. And I’m going to see you again, and again. Venice isn’t that far from England. I can visit you. You can visit me. We’ll make up for lost time. And you’ll meet my husband, Phil, and both my sons. You’re a grandmother. A young, glamorous nonna ! How about that!’
‘Oh, Cathy!’ Lina gasped, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘Grandchildren, how wonderful! Do you have pictures?’
‘Of course, not terribly good ones. I’ll show them to you. But first, there’s a phone call I have to make.’
Lina rose from her seat. ‘Stay here for your call. I will start making lunch; I hope you would like to stay.’
‘Thank you, I’d love to. I’ll come and help in a moment.’ Their first time in the kitchen together, mother and daughter. She could hardly wait.
Cate took out her phone and pressed the number for the nursing home. Sally on reception answered right away.
‘Cate, I am glad you’ve got back to me, love. It’s your dad. I’m afraid he’s had a fall.’
Fear gripped her. ‘Is he okay? Has he hurt himself? Has he broken anything? I’ll fly right back.’ The last filming session with Natalie, Phil’s meeting with Raj, even her lunch with Mum: none of that mattered. Not if Dad was hurt.
‘He’s fine, Cate, love, I promise you. There’s no need for you to rush back.’
‘But when did this happen? Why didn’t you phone me straight away?’ Her heart was banging in her chest.
‘I thought it was better to send a message so you could phone when it was convenient, you being on holiday like you are.’
‘Anything could have happened. He could have hit his head. He could have…’ She couldn’t bear to say the words out loud. Dad had to be okay. He couldn’t die. Not now, not before she’d tried to make things right.
‘Cate, Cate, my love,’ Sally soothed. ‘If anything really bad had happened, I would have phoned you right away and kept on phoning until you answered. Your dad tripped over dear old Dot’s stick. He caused quite the commotion, he did, but he landed face down on that big corduroy beanbag that Glenys’s son insisted on donating to the residents’ lounge. Hideous thing it is, we hide it away most of the time and only drag it out when we know he’s coming to visit. It was more of a shock for dear Dot than your dad, love, but I did think you ought to know. Dot’s been fretting ever since, but your dad, bless him, doesn’t seem to remember anything about it at all. Now, no more worrying. I’ve got a note you’re flying back the day after tomorrow, so you enjoy yourself. Venice, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it’s Venice. And thank you, Sally, it’s such a relief that Dad’s okay.’
Cate didn’t deserve this second chance but she’d grab it. She’d take a cab straight to The Evergreens the moment she stepped off the plane.