Chapter 9 #2
She began to brush herself down and Vee helped by picking twigs of privet out of her jumper. ‘I’m not sure that’s the safest way for you to come and visit,’ she began but Beryl quelled her with a look.
‘I think I’ll be the judge of that,’ she said, with a sniff. ‘Do you want a piece of my fruitcake, or what? It’s said to be the best in Willowbrook. I won a rosette for it at the village show last summer.’
Rick gestured for Beryl to come and sit down on the steps. ‘We can’t offer you a chair at this point,’ he said. ‘But as for cake, it’s yes from me.’
‘Actually, I didn’t just come to bring supplies,’ Beryl said.
‘I heard the music. Fancied a bit of a dance, I did. It took me right back. Me and your mum.’ She pointed to Venetia.
‘We used to dance on the grass when the mood took us. We cut the hedge right down in one place so we could hop over and see each other.’
‘I don’t remember that happening,’ said Vee. ‘Where was I?’
‘I suppose it was when you’d be at school. We were nifty movers in those days. Turn the volume up, lad, and I’ll show you a thing or two.’
Somewhat bemused, Rick did as he was told and the sound of Billy Ocean singing ‘When the Going Gets Tough’ filled the garden.
Instantly, Beryl began to dance, first jigging from foot to foot and waggling her elbows in the style of the more senior wedding guests at the evening disco but then branching out into a kind of solo tango, up and down the lawn.
Vee and Rick looked on in amazement, mouths gaping. As the tempo speeded up, Beryl whooped as she headed back towards them, gave a skip and fell over a tussock of grass. Before she had chance to hit the floor, Rick leaped forward and caught her again, scooping her up in his arms.
‘Ooh, Ricardo.’ Beryl giggled. ‘You’re sooo strong. Good job you were there.’
Vee’s heart was pounding. The sight of the elderly lady heading for what could have been a nasty fall had taken her right back to the final days with her mum, when Tallulah had fallen over more times than she was upright.
Then the use of the different name caught at her attention. Ricardo? Why did that ring a bell?
‘What did you just call him?’ Vee asked, in case she’d misheard.
Rick put Beryl down and made a big performance of making sure she wasn’t going to wobble. ‘Oh, it’s just a daft nickname she sometimes uses,’ he said. ‘Right, you’re okay now, aren’t you, Beryl? How about cutting that fruitcake? We really need an energy boost.’
Beryl gave him a sideways look but said no more, busying herself with opening the tin and bringing out a knife, three paper plates and a large cake, gilded with glacé cherries, walnuts and almonds that glistened under their sticky glaze of apricot jam.
Vee thought about pursuing her question, but the sight of the cake put that idea out of her head.
She accepted a large slice, almost forgetting to say thank you in her eagerness to bite into it.
Silence reigned apart from happy munching noises.
Beryl looked to be enjoying her own creation as much as the other two were, but when they’d all finished, she collected their plates and said, ‘It was funny, that song playing just at the right time.’
‘Why was it funny?’ Rick said, brushing the last crumbs from his boiler suit.
‘Well, Tallulah did the exact opposite of getting going with life when things got tough. Instead of sticking around to sort out her problems here, she voted with her feet, didn’t she, Venetia?
She did a runner. Tallulah got going in quite the wrong way.
Why was that? I always wondered. Your ma wasn’t the kind of woman to quit, as a rule.
Must’ve been something pretty drastic to make you all run away like that. ’
Beryl pursed her lips and gave Vee the sort of look that made her feel she was back at school and had once again forgotten to give in her homework.
It felt as if Beryl was blaming Vee in some way for what had happened back in 1985.
Perhaps she was. Or did she know something else?
Something that had been hidden for all these years.
Maybe the secrets Vee was keeping weren’t the same ones on Beryl’s mind after all.
Vee suddenly felt icy cold, even though the spring sunshine was warming the garden and making the daffodils that had survived the tangled mess of the border almost luminous in their golden glory.
How to answer that question? She stalled, and Rick stepped in.
‘I don’t reckon Vee’s up for talking about the past just now,’ he said. ‘Maybe another time, eh?’ He gave Beryl his biggest smile. ‘Now, what I’m wondering is, are we allowed more than one slice of cake?’
Distracted, Beryl began to fuss with the plates again, offering Vee more too, but the churning in Vee’s insides made that seem like a very bad idea. She shook her head. Beryl eyed her suspiciously.
‘Don’t you like my fruitcake? Oh, I get it, you’re on some sort of health kick, I suppose. Well, you’ll be getting more than your five-a-day with this beauty, let me tell you. Sultanas, dates, cherries – you name it, it’s in there. Come on, don’t be shy.’
Vee wondered if it would be easier to give in now and risk being sick on Beryl’s purple slip-on shoes, or try and brazen it out.
The first piece, although as delicious as the very best Christmas pudding, lay heavily in her stomach and all this talk of her family’s departure from Willowbrook was making her want to weep.
It had been a tough time for them all even before events had escalated and triggered what amounted to a moonlight flit.
‘Could we possibly have a piece each to save for later?’ she asked. ‘I can’t resist your lovely cake, but I’m full now. We had a big lunch. Maybe it’ll give us both an energy boost when we’re flagging later? There’s still a lot more to do before we go back to Rick’s.’
Beryl considered this suggestion, and then agreed, cutting them each a slice and wrapping it in the greaseproof paper that had been underneath her cake.
‘There you go,’ she said. ‘Now I must get back and do a few more jobs before I get ready for tonight. It’s going to be a good one, I’m on a roll.
Colonel Mustard with the dagger.’ Beryl mimed stabbing someone, rather too realistically for Vee’s liking.
‘Tonight?’ Was she missing something, Vee wondered? She felt as if she’d dropped into a parallel universe. One that was strangely familiar but also very unpredictable.
‘It’s games night at the pub,’ Rick said. ‘We go every Thursday, don’t we, Beryl? I play solo whist with three friends and the Saga Louts usually have a go at Cluedo, or Monopoly if they’re feeling like being property magnates. You should come along.’
That wasn’t how Vee had imagined her evening progressing.
She’d had hopes of a hot, bubbly bath, some warm pyjamas and her fluffy dressing gown, and an early night with a sandwich to eat in bed while she read a thriller.
She tried to find the right words to refuse gratefully, not wanting to offend the man who’d rescued her from sleeping on an ancient camp bed in a house that still smelt faintly of weed and other people’s sweat.
Luckily, Rick seemed to sense her discomfort before she had chance to reply.
‘I can see you’d rather have some chill-out time later,’ he said. ‘There’ll be plenty of opportunities for you to soak up local life at the pub in the future. You’re here for good now, aren’t you?’
Two words echoed around Vee’s mind. For good. Was she? To make this new life work and to really love it, she was going to have to make a massive effort to face up to her past, and that was something that Vee had absolutely no idea how to do. Not a clue.