The Honey Queen (47 page)

David and Opal laughed, Opal holding her hand up to her chest as she did so.

‘I never thought it would hurt afterwards,’ she said.

David sat with his mother and he agreed silently. He’d never thought it would hurt so much either.

At ten, his mother was dozing and Meredith, Freya and Steve came in to take over.

David left the hospital feeling shattered and knew he should head home to bed. But he had to know. He had to see Peggy one last time.

If she didn’t want to know him, then she’d made her decision and there would be nothing he could do about it. But he had to try.

As he parked in Redstone, he tried to rehearse things to say, but everything sounded wrong.

I love you – and is that my baby?

No, that sounded stupid, confrontational even. And he remembered how frightened Peggy had become the day he’d gone to the shop and she’d been there with Fifi.

He knew that Peggy opened the shop for four hours on a Sunday and closed on Mondays, like many of the local traders. Sunday was a good shopping day and he’d driven past a few times, sometimes seeing Peggy in there and other times, seeing Fifi inside.

When he pushed open the door to Peggy’s Busy Bee Knitting and Stitching Shop, Fifi was there again, this time taking coloured skeins of wool out of plastic bales and arranging them on the shelves.

‘Hi, Fifi,’ he said, ‘it’s your day, is it? Is Peggy at home?’

Fifi regarded him thoughtfully, as if trying to decide something.

‘No,’ she said. ‘She was supposed to be in today but she’s not feeling well.’

‘Morning sickness?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘You know she’s pregnant, then?’

‘My mother had a heart attack last night—’

‘Oh God, is she all right?’ asked Fifi, shocked.

‘She’s doing well – comfortable, they call it in hospital-speak. But she told me that she felt so sorry for poor Peggy who was pregnant with no father on the scene for the baby. Is it mine, Fifi? Come on, tell me. I need to know.’

‘I can’t tell you that,’ gasped Fifi.

‘Well, why won’t Peggy see me?’ demanded David. He leaned against the cash desk and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I’m crazy about her, I care about her, but … You remember that day I came here? She looked terrified of me. You’ve known me since I was a kid, Fifi, since when did I frighten anyone?’

Fifi stopped working.

She took a deep breath. ‘It’s not you that’s the problem,’ she said. ‘It’s her father.’

Peggy sat curled up on the couch watching
Sleepless in Seattle
again. She’d cried through most of it today. It seemed to sum up all that was wrong with her life – a beautiful baby on the way and the love of her life not there because she’d turned him away.

Had she made the biggest mistake of her life doing so? She asked herself that endlessly and seeing David last night had plunged her into total misery. She’d have to move, she decided. She couldn’t bear to live near him and face the prospect of bumping into him around Redstone.

She didn’t care about the shop any more. She’d have to sell it as a going concern. She longed for him so much and it would kill her to live near him and risk bumping into him. Imagine if Apricot looked like him, with that dark hair and those amazing blue eyes? He’d know then that she was his child, and what would he do then?

She was so deep in thought that she didn’t hear the bell at first. When it rang again, she set the film on pause and went to the door, only to find David himself standing on her doorstep.

Peggy gasped, and her hands instinctively cradled around her belly.

‘Peggy, hello,’ David said gently. ‘Can I come in?’

She nodded, not sure why she was saying yes but he was here and why not.

She went into the room where Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan were staring at each other on screen, caught on pause, and he shut the door and followed her.

‘My mum had a heart attack last night,’ he said.

‘Oh no, how is she?’ said Peggy, sinking into the couch.

‘She’s doing OK. She’s strong for all she’s so gentle and that’s why we all love her,’ David said. ‘She’s the kindest woman I have ever met and my father adores her. We all do. That’s why we organized a party for her sixtieth: to show her how loved she is. But the thing is, she knows.’

He looked at her meaningfully. ‘She knows we all love her. Nobody in our family has ever said a bad word to my mother in her life. I think we’d all go insane with rage if anyone ever did. That’s the sort of family I come from, the sort of family I want: where you treat the people, the
woman
, you love with respect and kindness. Men who do anything else aren’t men, they’re bullies and cowards.’

Inside her belly, Peggy felt the dolphin flip of Apricot.

She beamed up at David. ‘She moved!’ she said.

‘Really!’ His face was awed. ‘Can I … ?’

She nodded and he sat on the couch beside her and gently, as if he was touching a tiny baby, he felt the curve of her belly.

‘Just there,’ Peggy said, moving his hand.

Apricot flipped and David gasped. ‘I can’t believe that!’ he said and Peggy saw tears in his eyes. His hands were so delicate as he laid them on the mound of her belly, and she watched his face all the while, watching pride and love on his face.

He looked at Peggy, his hand still warm against her belly.

‘Is the baby mine?’

She nodded.

‘I’m sorry,’ Peggy said. ‘I couldn’t tell you, David. I haven’t had much experience of decent fathers, I didn’t know what to do. I can’t explain it to you—’

‘It’s OK, I understand,’ he said. ‘Fifi told me.’

This man wasn’t her father, she thought. This man was different. A man who knew how to love, a man not wracked by bitterness.

‘I don’t think I’ll ever understand someone like your father, but I can promise you, Peggy, that I am not that man,’ David told her earnestly. ‘I know you believe that you will somehow choose someone like him and you’re terrified to be with any man in case that happens. But I’m different. I am not like him. My father is the most gentle man in the world – that’s what I come from, that’s what I believe. That’s what I want to do for you. Can’t you give me the chance to do that?’

The fear that Peggy had carried for so much of her life was still there, but stronger still was the sense that David was a good, decent man. He would protect her and her baby, he would treat them with kindness. He loved her.

And she loved him.

‘I’ve been calling her Apricot,’ she said softly, putting one hand over his as he touched her belly.

‘It’s a girl?’ David said, and there was no mistaking the glitter of tears in his eyes.

‘It’s a girl,’ Peggy said. ‘Our little girl.’

‘Our little girl,’ repeated David joyously. ‘Wait till I tell Mum this – she’ll be out of hospital so fast because she’ll want to be here for us.’

At last, Peggy allowed herself to sink into David’s embrace. There, she felt comforted, safe and loved.

‘What are you watching?’ he asked curiously.

‘
Sleepless in Seattle
,’ she replied.

‘Is this the good bit? Where they meet?’

Peggy laughed. ‘Men hate this movie.’

David kissed the side of her cheek as delicately as if she were china.

‘Not this man, my love.’

Freya and Meredith were in the kitchen cooking a speedy dinner that evening when Gemma phoned Freya in consternation.

‘I heard that Opal’s had a heart attack,’ she screeched down the phone, so loudly that Meredith could hear every word.

‘Yes,’ said Freya patiently.

‘It’s just like your father! Just like him! I am so upset. I need to get to the doctor to get some of my tablets,’ shrieked Gemma.

Meredith stared at Freya in astonishment. She hadn’t met her aunt in years and had no idea that this was what she’d turned into. Freya’s face was pale with anxiety, and at that moment, Meredith made a decision. Her mother wasn’t here to take care of Freya, so she would.

‘Can I have the phone?’ she asked her cousin gently.

Freya looked relieved and handed it over.

‘Hello, Gemma, this is Meredith. You sound somewhat upset.’

There was more screeching.

Meredith held the phone away from her ear.

‘Is she often like this?’ she asked Freya, who shrugged.

‘You never know. Sometimes. She forgets I’m coming and doesn’t have food in. Or else we get pizza and she has too much to drink.’

‘And you stay with her every month? Who decided that?’

‘Opal said I should visit her because she was my mother—’

Meredith nodded. ‘Except she doesn’t behave much like a mother, does she?’

‘Gemma,’ she said clearly into the phone. ‘Have you been drinking? Just a few glasses, OK. Well, how about you go to bed now. Tomorrow, I’ll come over and talk to you. Yes, tomorrow.’

She hung up.

‘Freya, your mum probably isn’t the best person for you to stay with when she’s like this. In future, one of us should go with you to see what state she’s in. If she wants you in her life, she needs to clean up her act.’

Freya nodded eagerly. ‘Opal never says anything, ’cos Ned would go mad.’

‘Dad might need to go mad,’ Meredith said. ‘You deserve better, and I’m going to see you get it.’

Freya didn’t speak but the hug she gave Meredith said it all.

Lillie was flying off the next morning. She was both excited and sad because she’d loved her time in Redstone, and had loved learning about her mother. But there was peace in her heart at the thought of going home too. There was just one more thing she had to do and that was talk to Frankie.

‘Come on into the garden,’ Lillie said to her sister-in-law.

They were alone in the basement. Seth was upstairs with the builder, discussing things.

Lillie let Frankie walk ahead of her. She didn’t want Frankie to think that this was Lillie’s garden, with Lillie leading the way and showing her the plants.

‘Thank you for being so welcoming to me, Frankie,’ she said.

She stopped at the buddleia she’d planted in great clumps because it was a magnet for the bees.

‘It’s been great having you here,’ Frankie said. ‘I know you’ve seen how …’ She paused. ‘That Seth and I weren’t getting on so well for a while. Having you here made it easier.’

‘Like having children around when you’re having an argument,’ said Lillie, and Frankie smiled.

‘Exactly,’ she admitted.

‘Shall we try out Ned’s bench?’ asked Lillie.

Ned had donated many seedlings and vegetables to the garden, not to mention a lovely bit of willow that Seth had attached to one wall for the honeysuckle and clematis to cling to. The bench was his biggest gift, a heavily disguised contraption made of tea chests and painted olive green.

‘He sanded it down,’ Lillie pointed out, running a finger along the surface. ‘Said he didn’t want us to rip our legs to shreds when we were on it. Ned’s such a kindly man.’

She sat on one end and Frankie sat on the other.

‘You’ve really got the gift of making friends,’ Frankie remarked.

‘You’ve got that gift too, Frankie,’ said Lillie gently. ‘But ease up a little on yourself: it’s hard to make lots of friends when you’re racing from dawn till dusk every day, trying to work, trying to keep your own head above water and watching the man you love suffer. You have time now, time for both of you. That’s what I wanted to talk about.’

Frankie searched for a tissue to wipe her nose. She felt ridiculously like crying. Lillie understood. She’d been working so hard, desperately trying to hold on to her job, because she was the person the rest of the family would have to rely on financially, and when she’d lost it, there had been no chance for her to break down and cry. She was supposed to keep going as if she were a robot and she couldn’t. Because of that, she’d nearly destroyed her marriage. Lillie stroked the tea-chest bench, fingers finding a bit that Ned’s careful sanding had missed. It was the same in real life – there were always bits you missed.

‘I can see you’re so angry with yourself for what happened, but, Frankie, it wasn’t your fault,’ said Lillie. ‘So many things happened to you at the same time: the house, Seth’s job, Alexei and Emer going away. You were shoved at high speed into the second stage of life.’

‘You mean the
old
life stage,’ said Frankie wryly.

‘No, the second stage. The one when the kids have left home, you’re with this person who used to make your heart pulse and who now makes your blood pressure zoom up when he forgets to buy bread in the supermarket.’

In spite of herself, Frankie laughed. ‘Have you been watching me that carefully?’ she said.

‘I don’t have to watch you,’ Lillie said, ‘I only have to remember myself.’

Frankie’s eyes widened. ‘But you and Sam—’

She stopped. There was no way she could say that the departed Sam sounded like a paragon, that Lillie had clearly adored him, and therefore how could Lillie have any stories about fractious moments in their marriage?

‘Sam and I had our troubles too,’ said Lillie, her eyes twinkling. ‘I never thought I was wise,’ she went on, ‘but I appear to have a knack of seeing things simply and that translates to wisdom. If you take away all the surrounding problems and look at the actual issue, it’s quite easy.’

‘Easy with other people’s problems,’ said Frankie.

‘No,’ said Lillie. ‘Easy with your own. This is a new life: enjoy it and let go of the guilt.’

‘We’ll miss you,’ said Frankie.

‘Yes, but you’ll be coming to see me and we’ll be emailing,’ Lillie pointed out.

Frankie nodded tearfully.

‘And you can get someone in to mind the bees when you’re away.’

That made Frankie’s face light up. Since she and Seth had gone to dinner at Amy’s house, Frankie was even more keen on bees than Seth.

Amy’s lovely house and garden, with its two hives and vegetable patch, had spurred Frankie on. She was wildly eager for them to get their own bees – and to start planting their own vegetables.

She’d bought several books, they were both doing a beekeeping course, and Frankie, being Frankie, had immersed herself totally in the world of bees, having found several huge tomes from the library, which she ploughed through each night.